


The Musician and The Reporter

by thePetetoherPatrick



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Band, Brendon is just in there cause Pete needed to have a quirky co-worker he was friends with, M/M, OCs - Freeform, uh there WILL be smut but ya gotta wait for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-20 21:16:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 36,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6025282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thePetetoherPatrick/pseuds/thePetetoherPatrick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete walks to work from the subway every morning and there is this weird guy that walks ahead of him all the time, till one day Pete is ahead of him and he runs past to beat him to the corner. Pete is a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. </p><p>This fic started as another piece for a prompt posted in the Writer's Support Group I run on Facebook.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Race I was Unaware of

I stand on subway trying to ignore the noise of the train. I can still hear it over my music blaring in my headphones. I step onto the platform and head up the stairs onto the street to walk to work. I spot that guy that always walks ahead of me and beats me to the corner near work, I think he works across the street or something. He’s just a short little guy, always dressed pretty much the same, in a leather jacket, a fedora, and funky coloured or patterned skinny jeans. Today he is talking on his phone, he shifts the weight of his messenger bag as he furrows his brows and moves his hat to scratch his head, showing the soft looking red hair I can usually see from behind him. His jeans are dark green today. 

I turn and head down the sidewalk. I pull my backpack up so it sits more comfortably on my shoulders. I almost make it to the corner when I see someone run past me. He stops at the corner and turns around and smiles at me. As I reach the corner I take my headphones out and put them away, same as every morning. He stands there and waits, speaking up when I finally get there. 

“I’ve been winning for how long now, not about to let that change.” he winks. “See you tomorrow.” he turns and walks across the street and this time I stop to watch where he goes. He wanders into the Music Studio that I can see from my desk everyday. Tomorrow I’m wearing running shoes and I’m gonna beat that little shit here and ask him what his name is. I shake my head and walk into the Chicago Tribune office. Caroline waves at me as I pull down the hood of my sweater and head for the elevator. I nod and step into the elevator just as the door open. When they close I run a hand through my now messy black hair, brushing it to the side. I step out and wander over to my desk. 

“Morning Pete,” Brendon chirps at me standing on the other side of the wall separating our cubicles. “Get that story on the charity event done?” 

“Just about, you get your sports column article done?” He shakes his head and I look out the window at the Music Studio just as John walks up to my desk. I turn to face him.

“Wentz, I hope you are finished that charity event feature because I have another project I want you to take.” he looks over his glasses at me. 

“I just want to proof read it one more time and it’ll be done and in your inbox.” I nod. 

“Alright get that done, tomorrow I need you to meet this musician at the coffee shop around the corner at eleven. I want you to do an interview piece on him, he’s supposed to be the next big thing according to the owner of the Studio he uses.” he says in a tone that tells me he doesn’t know much about the guy. 

“Alright, what’s his name?” I pull out my notepad. 

“No idea, but I’m told you will know him when you see him, he stands out I guess.” he grunts before glaring at Brendon. “Get that sports article done Urie, I won’t tell you again.” he turns and heads back to his office. 

“Great, I hate not knowing anything going into an interview like this.” I rest my head between my hands. “Goddammit.” 

“You’ll be fine, he picked you for a reason, man. Just be glad you don’t have to an article on Men’s Swimming Teams.” he chuckles and sits down so I can’t see him anymore. 

A mystery musician, great. Hope he isn’t into anything weird. I listen to their music every time I have to interview a musician. It’d be just my luck to get some weird hippy music that is more someone complaining into a microphone than actual music, or something equally annoying. 

~~~~~

I stand on the train again and flex my legs. I look down to make sure my running shoes are tied good and tight. I step off the train and he’s on the phone again not facing me this time. I take off quickly walking through the crowds of people. I can see the corner in the distance so I break into a light jog. I reach the corner and stop, spinning on my heel. I don’t see him through the people but he’s even shorter than I am so I’m not surprised at all. I pull at my black skinny jeans that are sitting funny across my thighs from running. 

Suddenly he pops out of the crowd, red in the face and looking a little winded. I grin and can’t help but laugh. “Looks like I win today.” 

He chuckles, “So it would seem.” He straightens up and adjusts his hat and messenger bag. “Got caught up on the phone and by the time I got done and looked at the time you had a head start.” 

“So, do I get to know your name now that I’ve finally beaten you?” 

“Patrick,” he holds out his hand and I shake it. “You?” 

“Pete,” I look down at my phone. “and I had best get to work. See you tomorrow Patrick.” He grins and nods. 

I head up to the office and plop down in my seat. John pokes his head out of his office. “Thanks for getting that charity article done Wentz, make sure you aren’t late to that interview today.” he hollers at me.

“Yeah no problem.” I holler back and turn to my desk, pulling out my notepad. The mystery musician. Today is gonna be one of those days apparently.


	2. The Mystery Musician

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete does the interview with the mystery musician and discovers that he's somewhat of a little shit.

I walk around the corner to the coffee shop a half hour before I need to be there, backpack thrown over one shoulder. I’ve been to this coffee shop a million times for interviews, or just for coffee. I walk up to the counter and order a coffee and cinnamon bun. The guy behind the counter hands me my order and I head for the booth in the corner. I set down my food and my backpack, pulling out my notepad, a pen, and the list of mandatory questions John gave me for the interview. 

I look at my phone, fifteen minutes. I sip my coffee and pull a piece off of my bun. I doodle on my notepad and snack on my food for ten minutes. “What are you doing here?” I hear a familiar voice. I look up and see Patrick standing there with a coffee and a muffin in hand. 

“Waiting for someone, supposed to be meeting them at eleven.” I fold up the napkin from my cinnamon bun. “What are you doing here?” 

“Supposed to be meeting some stupid reporter for an interview for the paper.” he rolls his eyes and I freeze. 

I laugh nervously and shake my head. “Well shit, you’re the mystery musician?” I open a new page in my notebook. 

His eyes go wide. “Oh! Uh oops, sorry.” he sets his stuff down and sits across from me. “I wasn’t sure what office you worked in across the street, didn’t know you were a newspaper reporter.”

“It’s alright, I’m guessing this interview wasn’t your idea.” I take a sip from my coffee.

“Definitely not, the people at the studio thought it was a good idea.” he pulls the paper off his muffin. “Though I suppose because it’s you it might not be so bad.” 

“Well I have mandatory questions I gotta ask but other than that we just chat about your career or whatever.” I pick up my pen. “So shall we get this started?” he nods. “Your name?” 

“Patrick Martin Stump.” he grins and nibbles at a piece of his muffin. “I am surprised that you didn’t already know that.” 

“They didn’t give me any info, they just said you were a musician and gave me a time and place.” I scribble his name across the top line. 

“Huh, alright then, what else ya got?” he throws a crumb at me. I brush it off my arm and look at the sheet again. 

“When were you born?” I look up to see him rolling his eyes. I have to laugh. “Don’t worry the rest of the questions are less basic.” 

“April 27, 1984, and just to save you the trouble I was born in Evanston, Illinois.” he throws another crumb at me. 

I write what he told me down under his name. “Will you quit throwing crumbs at me?” I pick the crumb up and throw it back at him. He laughs quietly and shakes his head. 

“Next question reporter boy.” he sits back and folds his arms over his chest, probably trying to look menacing or something but failing miserably. I shake my head and look at the list of questions again.

“What kind of music do you do and why?” I sit up straight, “What got you into it?”

“I mostly like rock, punk rock, and alternative rock, because I like the style.” he sits forward slightly. “and I got into it at the suggestion of a friend, she always thought I had a good voice and liked the random little songs I came up with so she pushed me to actually go somewhere with it.” 

I jot a few notes onto the page. “The album you are currently working on, tell me about it?” I look at the question page, after this I kind of have to wing it. 

“It’s my second album, I don’t know what else to say about it, it started with a couple songs that I’d been working on for a while and then my manager went through my notebook and picked out some songs he liked to fill out the rest of it.” he sits back again, a look of boredom crossing his face. “How about we talk about you, you’ve got to hear about me, it’s only fair.” 

I shift uncomfortably in my seat under the attentive gaze of those blue-green eyes, he has sat forward to rest his arms on the table. Fully paying attention to me now. “Guess you aren’t familiar with how interviews work then are you.” I sip at my now cold coffee and can’t help but make a face. “You aren’t supposed to get to know me.” 

“Well you have run out of questions haven’t you? So how bout you put that notepad away and we just talk?” he throws another muffin crumb at me. “I see you everyday but we’ve never had a chance to talk so here we are with some free time, why not take advantage of it?”

I sit there and think for a minute, he has a point I guess. I look at the time and my heart drops. “Because I have to get back to the office for a meeting.” I put my notepad in my backpack and stand up. 

“Well then, I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow.” he grins not moving in his seat. 

“I suppose so, same place and time as always.” I shake my head and sling my backpack over my shoulders. I wave at him on my way out the door. Patrick Stump is an unusual creature, I’ll say that much, I think as I head back to the office.


	3. A Rumour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete checks out Patrick's music and talks to Brendon over email.

I sit at the desk shoved in the corner of my apartment with headphones in, listening to Patrick’s music. His friend isn’t wrong, he’s got a great voice. His songs are actually good, they’ve got a good beat behind them. I finish typing the mini-article on him with the info he gave me today. John said he wasn’t surprised I didn’t get much but that he doesn’t want me to give up. The mini-article is fine for now but he wants an actual piece on the guy. I look at the clock and wonder if the music store down the street is open still. I turn off my computer, grab my hoodie, and shove my feet in my shoes. I grab my wallet and keys and head down the stairs. 

Luckily it actually is still open, I look around till I find the alternative rock section. His CD isn’t hard to find, apparently it’s pretty popular right now. I take it to the cashier and she gives me a funny look. 

“What?” I inquire, trying not to seem defensive. 

“Usually the people who come in here and buy this album are teenage girls or any of those punk looking wannabe rock-star kids.” she rings it through anyway. “I mean you almost have the look with the hair but you don’t seem the type.” 

“Have you actually listened to it?” I brush said hair aside slightly to get it out of my eyes. 

“No, why? Is it actually good?” she raises an eyebrow at me.

“I think it is, you should give it a try.” I say before handing her the cash, grabbing my CD and heading out the door. Judgmental idiots, yeah I’ve got an assload of tattoos and my hair is longer and kinda cut in the “emo” style but seriously who cares. My dad told me I’d never get a job looking like this but clearly John doesn’t care. As long as I’m good at what I do he doesn’t care what I look like. I stop at the pizza place across from my apartment and grab some dinner. 

Once I finally get back home I put the CD in my CD Player and sit back down at my desk with some pizza. Now I can listen to the music without being hindered by my slow-ass internet. I take a bite of pizza and check my emails. John. John. Brendon. What does he want? I think as I click to open it. 

“Hey Pete, I was gonna tell you about it when you got back from your interview with that musician guy but you had a meeting and I had a project I had to leave the office for, but apparently someone at the office is spreading a nasty rumour about you. Caroline told me about it, she said she wanted to ask you about it but was afraid to in case it was true and you got offended. John heard her tell me and absolutely snapped and said the next person he heard say anything about it was getting mail-room duty for a month. Just wanted to let you know bud.”

What. The. Fuck? Do people seriously have nothing better to do with their time? I rest my head in my hands for a second before opening the reply box.   
“Hey Brendon, thanks for the heads up, what was this rumour anyway?” I hit send against my better judgement, I honestly probably don’t want to know. I read the emails from John while I wait for an answer. One is a general email sent to everyone and the other is a date and time for an interview with some kid that won an award of some kind. My computer makes it’s stupid little “you’ve got mail” noise and I open another message from Brendon. 

“Apparently some idiot is saying they saw you at a bar last weekend and some hot chick hit on you and you totally blew her off, so now everyone is saying you must be gay or something. I don’t know man.” I sit there and stare at my computer screen. They must not have been sitting real close to me or they’d know she was nasty smelling and looked like she’d been into something I’d rather not get involved with. I shake my head, some people. 

“Dude she was gross, she smelled like my old high school gym change rooms mixed with 3 day old fish that’d been sitting in the sun. She looked like she was into some drug or another and I was not touching that with a ten foot pole. Either way people need to mind their own business.” I hit send and take another bite of pizza. It doesn’t take long for him to respond this time. 

“Haha well I guess I don’t blame you there but as your best friend who swears on his mother’s life not to tell anyone...are you? I mean, dude, if you are it’s cool, I don’t have an issue with it, but I am supposed to be your best friend and I woulda figured that’d be something I woulda known about and I could defend you with a definitive no or back the fuck off and mind your own but you’ve never really told me so I assumed you aren’t but man I don’t know, I’ve never seen you with anyone and you don’t seem to date.”

Shit, I guess we never had talked about it. He’s definitely straight so we’d never had a reason to talk about it, I guess. I look at the computer screen and the keyboard, hesitant for a moment. 

“I don’t date because I haven’t found anyone I’d want to date yet, I don’t exactly talk to a lot of people. I’m actually not gay but I’m not straight either, I’m bi.” I stare at it for a long time before hitting send. Brendon is right, he is my best friend and he is the one person that at least should know. I sit and wait for a response. 

“Okay, fair enough and no no you really don’t, mostly just me, Joe, and occasionally Caroline. And bi? I don’t think I’m familiar with that one….what the hell does that mean?” a better response than I expected anyway. 

“You ass you aren’t supposed to agree with me and it means that I like girls AND guys, or at least that’s the easiest explanation I can think of.” I shake my head and go back to eating my pizza. 

“OH! Okay yeah I’ve heard of that before, hey dude cool, I mean more options I guess haha. Now why am I just now learning this?” I choke on my pizza a little, of course that’s what he’d think about it. Goddammit Brendon. 

“Yeah sure haha, and because not everyone is as accepting as you, people are assholes generally, you just happen to not give a fuck.” 

“That’s fair I guess, I just figure that it’s not really my problem unless you like me or some shit, and even then I’m not gonna be a douche about it. I mean dude I don’t see the point in being an asshole about stuff like that...you don’t though, right?”

I almost spit out my pizza laughing at that, and it takes a minute to regain my composure to respond. Only would Brendon Urie even have to ask that. “Dude, you’re cute, I will say that much, but if I was into you you would know by now HAHA, nah man you’re not my type.” 

His response is almost immediate, almost but I blame internet speed for the delay. “Fair and really? I’m cute? but NOT YOUR TYPE! what does that mean?”

“Yes you are cute as far as the modern man goes. And you’re batshit crazy for starters, totally nutty, you are straight, as far as I know, and you are into weird TV Shows.” 

He takes a minute but comes back with, “YAY :) and okay you have a point there, I’ll give you that, and yes I am pretty sure I am straight, but dude there ain’t nothing weird about my shows.” 

“Whatever man, you’re way too weird for me. I’ll talk to you at work tomorrow.” 

“You bet you will.” Is all I get back. I turn off the computer and take the box and leftover pizza to the kitchen. I stuff all of the leftovers into a tupperware container and throw it in the fridge. I pad across the floor of my apartment to turn off the CD Player and head to the bathroom to get ready for bed.


	4. Nicknames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete spends some time with Patrick and learns more about him.

As I step off the train I am greeted by Patrick standing just far enough out of the way not to interrupt anyone but close enough that I couldn’t miss him if I tried. 

“Good morning Pete.” he grins waiting for me. I nod and pull out my headphones, shoving them in my pockets. 

“Morning Pat.” I say trying to get my headphones to actually get in my pocket. 

“Dude no, don’t call me that.” he narrows his eyes at me and I can’t help but laugh. 

“Okay, how bout Pattycakes?” I offer. 

“Abso-fucking-lutely not.” he grumbles. 

“Or ‘Trick?” I give it a shot, and he pauses for a minute.

“Only if it’ll keep you from calling me Pattycakes or Pat or Patty or any other ridiculous form of my name.” he says as though this is something he is often faced with. 

“Alright, fair enough. So, ‘Trick, you waited for me today.” I emphasize the nickname and he cringes at it but doesn’t otherwise protest. 

“Yeah, we are no longer in the interview so now it’s your turn to tell me about you.” he says matter-of-factly. 

“I see, well what do you want to know?” I shake my head, should have known he wouldn’t give up on that. 

“Well you know my full name so spit it out.” he laughs. 

I slump my shoulders and grumble to myself. He waits patiently for me to respond. “My full name is Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz the Third and if you laugh I swear to Christ I will pummel you into the sidewalk.” I growl out and I can see him straining not to laugh, obviously believing that I’d make good on that threat. “I go by Pete though, my boss sometimes calls me Wentz but that’s it.” 

“Well that’s a hell of a name Pete.” he continues to strain against a giggle. “So,” he clears his throat. “When were you born?” he continues to question me, getting over my name finally.

“Really?” I sigh. 

“Yeah, you know all about me, so spill, when and where, buddy?” he pats me on the arm. 

I roll my eyes. “June 5, 1979 in Wilmette, Illinois.” I watch as his eyebrows go up. “What?” 

“You’re 5 years older than me?” he sounds almost shocked. “And that is like one town over from where I was, we probably know some of the same people. What are the odds!” 

“Yeah I guess I am, and I doubt it, I only had like two friends till I moved here and met Brendon and Caroline.” I keep my eyes on the sidewalk. 

“Well who were you friends with?” he asks, genuinely curious from the sounds of it. 

“Joe Trohman and Andy Hurley, they moved into the area when I was like nine, we started talking from time to time when I was sixteen, I think, and became friends. Joe is your age so he kinda missed out on a lot of the stuff we did but he would hang out at the skate park and stuff with us sometimes, I was actually closer to him than Andy.” I watch him to see how he responds. 

“I actually do know them.” he laughs. “Joe and I had talked about starting a band. He said he had a friend that could write songs and played the bass pretty good but that he’d asked him once and he turned down the idea. Andy was all for it but we never actually went through with it cause we couldn’t find a good bass player.” 

My mind freezes instantly, Joe had pitched the idea of a band to me saying I could play bass and use my writing “talent” to write songs. It was something I did for fun for a while, and I actually had played bass just for the hell of it but I wasn’t good enough to be in a band. “Oh, uh cool.” Is all I manage to say. 

“Yeah I was kinda bummed out about it, it would have been fun.” he says laughing gently. 

We stop at an intersection to wait for the light. “Anything else you wanted to know?” I ask him fiddling with the sleeves of my hoodie. 

The light changes so we cross the street. “Well...how about what time do you want to meet up for lunch today?” he asks as we reach the corner. 

“Uh, are you serious?” I pause for a minute.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t, so when and where?” he watches me, waiting to see what I’ll say.

“Okay then,” I pause trying to think of a place to go. “Same time and place as yesterday then?”

He grins, “Sounds good to me.” he turns to go across the street to the studio. “See you then, Petey.” 

“Don’t call me that!” I holler at him, I can see his shoulders shake with laughter as he ducks inside the building, before heading into the office.

~~~~~

I slide into the coffee shop booth at quarter to 11 again with my chicken salad sandwich and a lemonade. No sign of Patrick yet. I fidget with the cuffs of my hoodie’s sleeves and watch out the window for him. 

A couple minutes go by before he comes up the sidewalk. He sits across from me and sets down an old lunchbox, it’s plain yellow and has stickers all over it. He catches me looking at it and sighs. 

“I had packed a lunch, I didn’t plan on asking you to go to lunch.” he shrugs.

I chuckle quietly, “Nice lunchbox, what’s with the stickers?” I try to make out what some of them are. Band logos and what looks like stickers from an array of businesses.

“People keep giving them to me and I don’t have anywhere else to put them so they end up on my lunchbox.” he rolls his eyes and opens it. 

“Okay Lunchbox,” I say and laugh at myself, he frowns. “You wanted to meet up for lunch, I assume that means you’re gonna continue quizzing me.” 

“Do not start calling me that, and that was the general idea.” he grumbles pulling a container of leftover something out of the lunchbox. 

“Oh I am absolutely calling you that now,” I laugh and take a sip of my lemonade. “So what else do you want to know?” 

He narrows his eyes, “What do you do in your spare time?” 

I pause, “I don’t really do much, when I’m not at work I am doing stuff for work or hanging out with Brendon.” 

“Really? Come on dude ya gotta have some kind of hobby or something.” he furrows his eyebrows. “That sounds boring as hell.” 

“I used to but I don’t know, I just don’t do much anymore.” I shrug. 

“What did you do before?” he prods, for some reason this seems to interest him. I shrug and he furrows his brow in frustration. “Seriously?”

“What about you?” I turn the focus away from myself. “Hobbies?”

“I work on my music, I just moved here this month so you’re the first person I’ve really tried to be friends with, so I nothing much yet. I try to cook but I’m not very good at it.” 

I think for a minute, “Fair enough, why’d you move here anyway?” I take a bite of my sandwich.

“My manager thought it was a good idea, with me working at this studio now, both doing my own music and helping out with other people’s, it’s easier if I live close by.” he eats some of whatever it is he brought for lunch. “That’s why I walk to work, I managed to find an apartment close enough that I could.” 

“Huh, I looked for an apartment closer when I moved here so I wouldn’t have to take the train but there weren’t any available.” I say as he takes another bite of his lunch, my curiosity gets the best of me. “What the hell is that?” 

He blushes lightly, “It’s rice with some random crap from my fridge, like I said I’m not very good at cooking. Most of what I make ends up being weird mixes of whatever I’ve got at the time.” he take a drink of his water. “This one turned out okay, it’s edible at least.” 

I look at it and try and figure out what he could have put in it. “I’ve never done that before to be honest. When I don’t know what to have I go get pizza.” 

“I guess that would make more sense but I don’t know, it’s kind of fun to make something when you don’t know how it’s gonna turn out, you end up with some funky combinations of flavours that you probably never would have thought of otherwise.” he pushes the container towards me and hands me his fork. “Try it.” I cautiously scoop up a little bit of the weird mess and sniff it. Doesn’t smell bad, I think with a shrug and go ahead and eat it. 

I hand him his fork and chew what’s in my mouth. It’s mildly spicy, and I’m pretty sure that was a chunk of breaded chicken in the rice. “That’s definitely different, what’s in it?” 

“Uh, I think this one was salsa, chopped up chicken strips, cheese, and rice. It’s one of the more tame mixes I’ve done.” he shrugs and goes back to eating. 

I look at my the time on my phone, and realize we’ve been sitting here for an hour. “I’ve gotta get back to the office.” I scarf down the last couple bites of my sandwich. “Here, add your number.” I hand him my phone, he flips it open and types in his name and number. Then hands me his, and I do the same.

When I hand him back his phone, he shoves it in his pocket. “Tomorrow is Saturday right?” I think out loud. “Usually Brendon and Caroline come over and we drink and play board games, I know it sounds lame but it gets kind of funny. You should join us.” 

He laughs, “Sounds like fun, your place?” I nod. “Text me your address, what time should I be there?”

“Usually around six, Brendon grabs pizza on his way up, you picky ‘bout what you like on yours?” I flip open my phone and send him my address. 

“Nope, not usually.” he smiles. “Why are you inviting me over anyway?” 

“Well you said you haven’t lived here long enough to make any friends, Brendon is kinda nutty but Caroline is nice and having four players opens up more board game possibilities.” I laugh, “Thought you might like to meet some new people and have fun.”

He smiles so big he looks like a kid, his face lit up and adorable. “Actually yeah, thanks. You're the first one to do something like that.” 

“Hey anytime, I gotta head out but I’ll talk to you later.” I wave and head out the door, with my lemonade in hand. Who’d have thought I’d make friends with the guy that raced me to work every day. He waves back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter ended up being a little longer than I'd thought it would be but I hope you guys enjoy it anyway.


	5. Reassigned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luckily for Pete when John sees or hears bullshit, John fixes said bullshit, and Brendon is a dork.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5 was going to be Game Night but it got too long and I'm still not done with that part so I had to split it, but hey you get this next piece earlier than expected <3 enjoy!

“Hey man, sorry I wasn’t here this morning, John was not happy with me about how long the Swim Team article took so he sent me on an assignment as a punishment.” Brendon says as he strolls into the office a few minutes after I return from lunch with Patrick. 

“Hey, that’s fine, it’s been quiet for the most part today.” I hand him the mail that came in for him while he was gone. “We still on for game night tomorrow?”

“Hell yeah, of course we are. I’ll be there with an extra large pepperoni pizza at six, same as always.” he grins wide. 

“Good because we have a fourth.” I say as Caroline comes around the corner from the stairs. 

“Oh, who?” Brendon arches an eyebrow at me, confusion all across his face.

“Patrick.” I say. “Hey Cari, what do ya need?” 

“Who the fuck is Patrick?” Brendon asks incredulously, but Caroline doesn’t give me chance to respond to him. 

“I was gonna say something yesterday but I was afraid it’d upset you so I didn’t, but I’ve been thinking about it all last night and today and I realized I can’t just not say anything.” she takes a deep breath. “Pete, buddy, someone has been spreading rumours about you, I don’t know who started it but I heard it from Sharon in photography.” 

“Yeah, Brendon emailed me last night, ‘cause he’s too much of a nerd to just text me.” I roll my eyes in his direction. 

“Dude, I knew you would be working on that music piece so I knew you would get it like immediately.” he throws his hands up. 

“Oh, okay, I just wanted to make sure you knew. It’s not really fair if you don’t know, I thought at least you’d want to be able to defend yourself. People need to mind their own business.” she sighs. 

“Defend myself? Cari what do I have to defend myself from?” I start to feel a touch uncomfortable. 

“What? Oh no, I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing to be, or that it’s an insult but some of the photographers are refusing to work with you if you get a project you need pictures for.” she pats my arm. “They are being absurd of course, but they’ve been talking about it. John said if he heard another word about it there’d be hell to pay but they still whisper.” 

I sink back into my chair, “Why are people so stupid about shit like this? Why does it even matter?” 

“I don’t know, but it’s ridiculous.” I hear from behind me and turn to see John standing there. “Unfortunately I do actually have a job for you that requires pictures. However, I am not about to send you anywhere with one of them when there is a chance they will harass you or treat you unfairly. I don’t care if it’s true or not, nothing gives them the right.” 

“Thanks, but then how am I supposed to get the shots we need?” I nod, grateful not to have to work with someone who’d just spend the whole time giving me disgusted looks.

“Well, Brendon, you seem incapable of finishing articles on time but after your assignment today, which was not a punishment but a test, you will be Wentz’ photographer.” John hands Brendon one of the company’s cameras. “You did a pretty good job on that project and it was completed in record time for you. You’ll stay at your desk here, there’s no room in photography and this way you and Pete can work together easier.” 

Brendon fist pumps with a barely audible exclamation of “Yes!” I shake my head at him. 

“He’s your problem now Wentz.” John chuckles and hands me an envelope. “Here’s all the info I could get on your assignment. You don’t have to start on it till Monday though.” he turns on his heel and heads back to his office. 

“Now this is gonna be fun.” Brendon muses aloud. “Also, you did not answer me, who in the fuck is Patrick?” 

“Patrick?” Caroline echoes, her soft voice full of confusion.

“Yeah, just before you came over Pete was telling me he invited someone named Patrick to game night tomorrow.” Brendon says to her. 

“Oh, who is Patrick?” she asks and they both turn to me.

“He’s a guy that I walk to work with, he works at the studio across the street. You remember that Mystery Musician project John gave me?” I direct the last part at Brendon. He nods. “That was Patrick.” 

“Now hold on, you walk to work with the guy? Why have I never heard of him?” Brendon looks disgruntled. 

“Because I didn’t start actually walking with him till today, I didn’t start talking to him till the last couple days. I used to just see him walking ahead of me on the way here every morning.” I shrug. Caroline snickers at Brendon as he rolls his eyes and sighs. 

“Well I’ll see you guys tomorrow night, I have to actually get back to work now.” Caroline shakes her head as she walks away.

Brendon flops down into his chair and wheels it around to join me at my desk. “So I’m cute but not your type eh?”

I laugh and roll my eyes. “Yes Brendon, we had this conversation last night.” 

“Well what the hell is your type then?” he crosses his arms and leans back in his chair. 

“I don’t really know for certain, I just know that you aren’t it.” I look towards my desk. “You are definitely attractive, I’m just not attracted to you.” 

“Huh, well what the fuck?” he throws his hands up sarcastically. 

“Why does this bother you?” I furrow my brows. 

“I don’t know, I guess it’s just one of those things, you say I’m attractive but apparently not attractive enough for you.” he fake pouts at me. 

“You’re a dork.” I push his chair away from my desk. laughing. He laughs and scoots his chair back towards me.


	6. Game Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brendon, Caroline and Patrick come over to Pete's for game night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized that so far in this fic I haven't really given any idea of when this all take place other than that Pete has his emo hair, haha oops, to be honest it's a hodge podge mess BUT I did some math and came to the conclusion that this would be set starting in May 2008, the events in the story are not affected by ANYTHING that happened at that time cause this is an AU so :P, but it gives you an idea of how old they are and why in the hell Pete and Patrick have flip phones. Just thought I'd clear that up for ya's enjoy ^-^

I push a chair against the counter and climb up to reach the whiskey and vodka stashed on top of the cupboards. I carefully put the bottles on the counter and climb down as I hear a knock on the door. I put the chair back at the counter and head for the door. I open it to find Caroline and Brendon standing there, Brendon carrying a pizza and Caroline carrying a case of beer. 

“Hey man.” Brendon grins, I let him past me and take the beer from Caroline. She follows Brendon over to the table and I set the beer on the counter. “So your new buddy isn’t here yet?”

“No, not y…” I am cut of by a gentle knock on the door. “Hold that thought.”

I open the door to reveal Patrick, in red plaid skinny jeans, a black t-shirt, and the same leather jacket and fedora as always. “Hey.” he smiles. 

“Hey, come on in.” I let him past me. He sheds his leather jacket and he looks even smaller without it. I hold my hand out and he gives me the jacket. I hang it up and motion towards the table. “Patrick, this is Brendon and Caroline, my colleagues and friends.” 

“Hi, I’m Patrick.” he holds his hand out to Brendon, who grins and shakes it. 

“I hope you like pepperoni, it’s what I always grab on my way over here. Pete really likes pizza.” Brendon laughs as I shake my head and grab some beers from the kitchen. I pass them around. 

“So what game do you guys wanna play?” Caroline asks as she looks through the pile beside my desk. “We’ve got about a dozen choices.”

“Grab the Game of Life.” Brendon says before taking a swig of his beer. “That’s always a good way to get to know someone.” he grins at Patrick who smiles weakly. 

“Well get over here and help me, it’s in the middle of the pile.” she laughs and Brendon goes over to help her. 

“You okay there Lunchbox?” I ask him quietly. 

He narrows his eyes at the nickname, “Yeah, just nervous I guess, I’m not great with new people, that’s why I haven’t really made any friends in the month I’ve been here.” 

“You were fine with me.” I watch him as he shifts uncomfortably. “You’ve seemed pretty confident till now.” 

“It took me a month to say anything to you, and yeah I’m sure but I’m an awkward mess with new people.” he shrugs. 

“Fair enough I suppose, you’ll be fine, like I said yesterday Cari is a nice girl and Brendon may be nuts but he’s not an asshole, if he sees you’re uncomfortable he’ll take it easy on you.” I pat his shoulder and sit down at the table. I grab a slice of the pizza as he sits down beside me. Caroline and Brendon join us. 

“Alright, let’s get..” Brendon starts then looks at me. “Goddammit Pete, into the pizza already.” I laugh and continue to enjoy the pizza. He shakes his head and throws my little car game piece at me, the white one that Brendon took a black Sharpie to the one night and coloured the whole thing. “What colour do you want Patrick? There is yellow, red, and green left.” he says pulling out Caroline’s blue car and his orange one.

“I’ll take the red one I guess.” he says quietly and starts to help Caroline set up the board. Brendon runs to my desk and grabs something, I can’t see what he’s doing but I’m pretty sure I know anyway. 

He comes back and hands Patrick his red car, now covered in a pattern of lines that make it look like it’s plaid, just like Patrick’s pants. “There ya go, we all have different stuff on our cars, I’ve decorated them all. Caroline’s is covered in white polka dots, mine has little flames on it, and Pete’s is the white car coloured black because the game didn’t come with a black piece and Pete always wears black so I figured I’d fix that.” he grins and hands Patrick a little blue peg.

“Oh, thanks.” he looks at his car and chuckles quietly. Caroline pulls out all of the crap and we set everything up for the game. 

~~~~~

“Well fuck,” Brendon laughs, “Guess you’re pretty good at this game.” he says to Patrick as we tally up the scores on the fourth round of Life. So far Patrick has won every one of them. This could have something to do with Brendon being drunk off his ass, and me and Caroline just generally sucking at this game as usual. 

Patrick laughs, he seems more at ease now. I can’t figure out if it’s the drinking or getting to know us all that’s got him to relax. At some point during the last round Brendon stole Patrick’s hat and put it on my head. I haven’t bothered to move it other than to fix the way it sat on my head and ‘Trick doesn’t seem to mind, though he was not happy when Brendon took it.

Brendon stands up to go get another beer and his ass immediately hits the floor. “Alright buddy, I’m gonna call a cab for you. You gonna go with him to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself?” I ask Caroline who laughs and nods. 

I grab my cell and call the cab service we use for Brendon every weekend. “Hey, it’s your usual Saturday night call from Pete.” I say as the dispatcher answers. There is a chuckle on the other end of the line and she promises to send the same driver as always, then hangs up. She always sends the same on cause he knows where Brendon lives now and knows how to deal with his drunk ass. I look up from the phone to see Patrick putting the game back in the pile and Caroline hauling Brendon off the floor to lead him downstairs. 

“See ya Monday Pete. Bye Patrick, it was nice to meet you.” Caroline says while Brendon tries to put his shoes on and ends up headbutting the wall. He groans and then figures it out. He waves at me and ‘Trick as Caroline pulls him out the door. 

“Do you want some water or something ‘Trick?” I ask him but I don’t hear a response. I turn around to see him passed out with his head on the table. I chuckle to myself and walk around behind him, I loop my arms under his and around his chest and pull him up to a standing position so I can pick him up and carry him to the couch. I set him down carefully and grab a blanket to throw over him. I walk to my room and grab one of my pillows, I take it back to the living room but he’s sitting up when I get there. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” he says quietly. 

“It’s fine, if you’re that tired it’s safer for you to just sleep there.” I say and hold up the pillow. I step forward and put it down so he can lay down and go to sleep but suddenly he wraps his arms around my neck and kisses me hard on the lips. In the back of my head I can hear a little alarm going off but I kiss him back anyway. He pulls away and looks at me, seemingly assessing something. “What?” 

“Just making sure you’re not mad. I wasn’t sure if you’d be okay with it.” he says then for some reason let’s go of me and starts laughing uncontrollably. 

“What?” I exclaim, do I have something on my face, what the fuck? He just continues to giggle. “What the hell Lunchbox, what is so funny?”

He gasps for air, “I forgot you were still wearing my hat, I couldn’t figure out what was on your head for a second.” I reach up and sure enough his fedora is still on my head, I laugh and take it off.

“Sorry ‘bout that, Brendon is kind of an ass.” I offer it back to him.

“No, it’s fine. Usually I hate when people touch my hat but it looks good on you.” he smiles innocently. “Has anyone ever told you that you have the most unusual eyes?” 

My eyebrows go up abruptly, “No, can’t say they have, what so unusual about them?” I sit down on the couch beside him and he moves over to lean against me. 

“They are just a dark brown most of the time but in some light they look golden, almost like a whiskey colour. It’s really pretty.” he says quietly, snuggling against me and then looking up at me to see if it’s okay, I nod. 

“Well thanks I guess, I didn’t know they did that.” I put my arm around him. “You must be drunk.” I say. He laughs and says something I don’t hear. I shift to try and get him to repeat it but he’s fallen asleep again and I’m not about to wake him up. 

If he looks cute, sweet, and innocent when he’s awake it triples when he’s sleeping. Even when he look confident or fierce the undertone of adorable is always there, but as he sleeps curled into my side he looks so pure and innocent and out of place in my dingy apartment. 

I grab the blanket from beside me and throw it over us. I shift my weight and try to lay down, he opens his eyes only slightly and manages to see what I’m trying to do. He moves so I can grab the pillow and lay down, once I’m comfy he lazily crawls up to lay between me and the back of the couch, snuggling into me and pulling the blanket up with him. I set his hat on the coffee table and settle in, drifting off to sleep without really realizing I was tired.


	7. Tattoos and Panic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day after game night...that's all I've got to say about this.

I wake up feeling like I’m being pinned down by something. I look down and see red-blonde hair. Patrick is cuddled into my chest, his arm wrapped around my torso. I kick the blanket off carefully and wiggle my way out from under him. Thankfully he doesn’t wake up, I walk to my bedroom and grab a towel. 

I jump in the shower and lather up my hair with my favourite shampoo. I hum along to a song stuck in my head as I wash. When I’m done I wrap my towel around my waist, my hair hangs in my face, dripping ridiculously. I walk out to the kitchen, and open the fridge.

“Holy shit.” I hear from the living room, I’d forgotten about Patrick. I look over at him. He’s sitting there wide-eyed staring at me. 

“What?” I set the orange juice on the counter. 

“I didn’t know you had tattoos, let alone that many tattoos.” he stares at me. He gets off the couch and stretches before padding his way over to me. He examines the circle of thorns that runs across my collarbone and around the back of my shoulders, tracing his fingers lightly across them. 

“I’ve gotten a few over the years.” I say as he traces the bat heart tattoo that sits below my belly button. “My favourite so far is this one.” I hold out my arm and show him the detailed drawing of Jack Skellington on my forearm. “I love the Nightmare Before Christmas.” He seems fascinated by all of my tattoo. “You’ve seen tattoos before, haven’t you?” I laugh. 

“Of course, but tattoos usually tell a story about the person they are on. I’m just trying to figure out yours.” he smiles. 

“Well, I’m going to go get dressed, there is cereal in the cupboard and milk in the fridge, help yourself.” I walk back to my room and pull out one of the many pairs of black skinny jeans. I pull them on and fasten my belt into place. I pull out my Metallica shirt that I cut the sleeves off of and pull it over my head. I check my hair in the mirror, it’s not a total right off, stayed pretty much straight surprisingly. I run a comb through it as an added measure and wander back out to the kitchen. 

He standing at the counter eating a bowl of my fruit loops, reading something on the counter. I grab a glass from the cupboard and the orange juice and pour myself a glass. I look over his shoulder to see what he’s reading. It’s the mini-article I did on him. 

“I wouldn’t read that if I were you.” I say and he jumps. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“It’s fine,” he pauses and looks at me for a second. “What the hell?” 

“What?” I try to figure out what he’s looking at. 

“So that’s what you wear on your days off?” he giggles. 

“Oh,” I shrug. “Yeah, during the week I wear a plain t-shirt and my hoodie, but when I’m not working I’m free to wear whatever.”

“You’re a Metallica fan?” he arches an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, I listen to all kinds of rock music actually.” I drink some of my orange juice. 

“Huh,” he smiles then apparently thinks of something. “Oh, this article, by the way, is very monotonous.” 

“Well you haven’t exactly given me much to write about,” I grin, “but it’s just an informative mini-article, it’s supposed to be like that. John wants me to do a bigger piece, maybe on something specific but I don’t know.” 

“Well,” he thinks for a minute. “do you have any plans for today?” 

“No, not really, why?” I set my glass down.

“I’m free today if you wanted to try and get a proper article done.” he shrugs. “I trust you a little more than any other reporter, I’d rather have you do the article than any of them.”

“Why? You’ve had articles done about you before, haven’t you?” I ask, more than a little surprised that he’d trust me above others. 

“I’ve done the interviews, most of them are digging for dirt on me to make it seem like I’m a dick or something. I don’t give them anything so they don’t publish it.” he shrugs, “But you’ve done nothing but try to be my friend, you’ve been kind to me and allowed me into your life so I trust that you wouldn’t do that to me.” 

My eyes go wide, “Well,” I shake my head, “no, no I wouldn’t do that to you because that’s a horrible thing to do. It’s called respect and human decency last I checked, and shouldn’t be something that’s a big deal.” 

He smiles at me. “Your eyes are doing that thing again.” he says so quietly I don’t think he actually meant me to hear it. 

“Are they?” I ask and he looks startled, he hadn’t meant me to hear that. 

“You remember?” he looks embarrassed, his pale face going bright red. “I didn’t think you would remember that.” 

“I remember everything from last night, I wasn’t as drunk as you and Brendon. I’m surprised you remember it.” I shift my weight to the other foot, realizing I’ve been leaning to one side as my leg begins to ache a little. 

His eyes go wide and his jaw drops. “I wasn’t actually that drunk,” he says, his face going redder. “Everything?” I nod and he goes from red to whiter than normal. His face goes slack in absolute horror. “Oh god.” 

I laugh and his head snaps up, a look of confusion on his face. “What are you so freaked out about?” 

“I…” he can’t seem to find the words. “I don’t know how you are still talking to me, I…” he hangs his head. “I can’t believe you’re not mad at me.” 

“Why would I be mad, Lunchbox? You didn’t do anything that would constitute me being angry.” I put my hand under his chin to get him to quit hiding his face. 

“I kissed you.” he brushes my hand away and tries to hide his face even more. 

“Why would that piss me off?” I arch an eyebrow. 

“Because you don’t seem like the kind of guy would be ok with that. I’m surprised you hadn’t figured it out that I’m gay as hell.” he says and then looks horrified at himself. He waits on baited breathe for my reaction and I can’t help but laugh. He squeaks and jumps away at the outburst of laughter that comes from me. 

I regain my composure after a minute or two and he is still standing there watching me. “You thought I was gonna be a homophobic asshole?” I shake my head at him. “I mean, no I hadn’t guessed you were gay, but I’m hardly one to judge.” 

He just stands there for a second. “What do you mean you’re hardly one to judge?” 

“‘Trick, I’m bisexual, why in the hell would I judge you for being gay when I’m not exactly straight myself? That’d be a bit hypocritical, wouldn’t it?” I try to contain the laughter that threatens to escape again. 

His jaw drops and he looks at me like I’m crazy. “But..”

“But what? I don’t look gay? Who does? What the fuck does a gay guy look like? There isn’t a way of looking and you should know that.” I sigh and he nods. “If I was gonna get mad and have a homophobic freak out it would have happened when you did it.” I rest a hand on his shoulder, I can’t believe he was actually worried about that. 

He stands there for a minute, processing I’d imagine. He looks up at my face for a brief second before I bring my face down to his and press my lips against his. He sighs and loops his arms around my neck, kissing me back. I feel his fingers twine into the hair at the base of my neck. I move my mouth on his and he parts his lips slightly. I take the invitation and kiss him deeper, my tongue brushing against him. I pull back to take a breath, wrapping my arms round him. He looks up at me, pupils almost swallowing the beautiful blue-green irises. His pale complexion flushed slightly.

Suddenly I realize that I am standing here making out with a guy I’ve only known a few days and I let go of him. He looks disappointed and turns away, probably coming to the same realization. I see his shoulders rise and fall in a sigh. 

“Hey,” I pull at his shoulder gently, pulling him back to wrap him in a tight hug. He shudders and I realize it wasn’t a sigh. He’s crying not much but it’s still enough to bother me. I pull back and look at him. He tries to hide his face but I don’t let him. I brush away the tears. “What’s the matter? I’m still not mad. ‘Trick, I think that we need to take this a little slower and get to know each other better.” his face calms slightly. “You thought I would be mad at you for something I started? I don’t actually get mad as easily as you seem to think.” 

“I just...I guess…I don’t know.” his shoulder slump. “I guess you are right about getting to know each other, I just…” 

“Hey it’s ok, spit it out whatever it is.” I look him in the eyes expectantly. 

“Not used to this I guess, I didn’t think any of this would happen, I just wanted to make friends.” he whispers, his voice failing him apparently. 

“Neither of us expected this but I think we can work with it, if you want to.” I say quietly. 

He nods, smiling slightly. “Do you still want to work on that article today?” 

“Only if you want to.” I say firmly. He nods, glad to have something to think about. “Are you still in the closet?” He nods frantically. “Okay, just checking so I can make sure not to include anything that would accidentally out you.” 

“Thanks Pete.” he hugs me and then heads to the living room, with me in tow. He sits down on the couch on the end closest to my desk. I sit in the chair at the desk and turn on my computer. He looks around the room while I get my stupid computer to boot up. He seems to spot something across the room. “Hey Pete?” he says with a curious tone to his voice. 

“Yeah, what is it ‘Trick?” I focus on the computer. 

“You never said you were into music.” he says. 

“I listen to a lot of music, yeah, what about it?” I turn to look at him and he’s staring across the room.

“Well I figured that but you never said you played.” he says and I follow his gaze to my bass sitting in the corner on the other side of the room. “I asked if you had any hobbies and you said not really.”

“Oh, that, I don’t really play much anymore.” I turn back to the computer. Shit. 

“You…” he trails off. “You were Joe’s friend that writes and plays bass. You were the one who didn’t want to be in a band.” he comes to the realization I was hoping he’d avoid. 

“Yeah, it wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to, I’m sure it would have been cool but I’m not as good as Joe seems to think.” I hang my head and sigh. 

He turns his attention back to me and I realize the computer is ready. 

“Ok, so what am I gonna do this article about?” I ask, diverting his attention from the instrument. He refocuses on the task at hand and smiles. 

“Well did you want to cover my life before music or my career?” he shrugs and I laugh, gonna be one of those days I see.


	8. Charity Event

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete and Brendon go to a charity event for whales...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oceanbones this one is for you  
> SAVE THE WHALES lmfao

Brendon pokes at my shoulder and hands me an envelope. I take it from him and realize it’s the assignment John gave me on Friday. 

“It fell on the floor.” he laughs and pulls his chair up beside me. I open it and look at it. 

I laugh, “Well Brendon, how would you like to be my date to the charity art gallery event tomorrow night? It’s a black tie event.” 

He laughs. “Well Pete, I’d love to, I thought you’d never ask.” he erupts into a giggling fit. “Is it actually?” he looks at the information over my shoulder. “Well shit, guess I gotta dig out my nice clothes.” 

Caroline suddenly appears outside my cubicle, looking at us like we are crazy. “What the hell is going on here?” 

“Pete is taking me on a date to a fancy charity event.” Brendon laughs and hugs me. 

“I have to cover the story on the charity event going on at some art gallery tomorrow night, and apparently it’s a black tie event. This bone-head is my assigned photographer now so I have to take him with me.” I roll my eyes and she laughs. 

“Oh yeah,” she sighs, “Well Pete I have to ask how you managed it. John hasn’t shut up about it all morning.” 

“Hasn’t shut up about what?” I arch an eyebrow. 

“You couldn’t get any useful info for a proper article from Patrick, then, suddenly, late last night you email a complete and rather interesting article about him to John. How’d you get him to talk to you?” she folds her arms over her chest. “He didn’t talk about any of that during game night so you had to have talked to him after that.” 

“Oh, that, yeah he ended up passing out on my couch and we talked the next day and he decided to help me get a proper article done.” I shrug. “Not really a big deal and I can’t imagine why John would be so excited about it.” 

“I’m excited about it because I too would like to know how you did it, it’s an amazing article but you told me the guy wasn’t very forthcoming with helpful information.” John says leaning over the wall of my cubicle. 

“I happened to have met the guy just before the interview, and I befriended him after the interview, he’s new to the area and hasn’t had much chance to make local friends, plus even though we never met each other we had the same friends as when we were younger.” I shrug. “All I did was be a decent human being.” 

“And that, Wentz, is why you are my favourite reporter. I wish I had more like you.” John grins and walks back to his office. 

Caroline smiles, “Well it’s better than what most reporters would do for a story I guess, just don’t do anything that’ll hurt the poor guy, he seems to be a pretty good guy.” she walks back to the stairs. 

“So tomorrow night,” Brendon starts to say but I cut him off.

“Brendon, I swear if you wear that red tux I am leaving you behind, I will not be seen with you in that thing.” I warn sternly and he pouts. 

“Damn,” he grins, “Well I’ve got a plain black tux I can wear, but you are no fun.”

“Oh, I’m fun, I’m just practical and standing out like that would not be practical.” I shake my head at him. “You’ll make people uncomfortable.” 

He feigns shock, “Me! Never!” he laughs. 

~~~~~

I wait outside Brendon’s apartment with my notepad and a pen tucked inside my jacket. I feel weird in a tux. I brush my hair out of my face for the millionth time already. Brendon comes out the front door dressed in a plain black tux, as promised. He has a camera hanging around his neck. 

“You ready?” I say opening the door to the cab waiting. He nods and climbs in. I follow and the driver puts it in drive. I only takes five minutes to get there. We get out of the cab and Brendon loops his arm around mine. “You’re such a fucking dork.” I shake my head at him and lead him into the gallery. The guy at the door takes our names and greets us as John’s boys from the Tribune. I smile and we move on, shaking my arm to get Brendon to let go of me.

We wander around the whole night, talking to people. I donated some to the cause because it’s actually a good one this time. Brendon gets a bunch of good pictures I’m sure I can use for the article. Both of the people and the artwork, which is actually kinda pretty and themed to the fundraiser. Hopefully John is impressed with us working together. Brendon is one of the youngest employees at the company at only 21, and tends to goof off more than work, so John is a little tough on him. 

“Hey man, how’s it going?” he asks me. “You got a story yet?” 

“Yeah I think so, tired of this already?” I shove my notepad back in my pocket. 

“Yeah just about.” he says looking bored. 

“Alright, I’ll call the cab.” I pull my cell from my pocket and call the cab service. I request a pick-up and give them the address. I snap my phone shut. “They should be here in five minutes.” he nods and loops his arm around mine again. I lead him outside and we wait at the curb. 

“Hey man, what are you doing the rest of the night?” he asks me, leaning into me and almost knocking me over. 

“I am going home to relax, maybe order some Chinese. Probably throw in a movie.” I push him off me so I can stand up straight. 

“That sounds like fun I guess.” he laughs. “I’m gonna look through these pictures tonight and get rid of the blurry ones so you don’t have as much to look through tomorrow before you send them to John.” 

“Thanks, you seem more willing to do this work than you did reporting about stuff.” I arch an eyebrow at him. 

“Yeah, I don’t know, the articles John had me doing just didn’t interest me. But pictures are kinda easier, you never get bored with them because I can guarantee there is probably a bad picture of someone making a ridiculous face somewhere in there.” he laughs, pointing at the camera. 

“Makes sense I guess, but I thought you wanted to be reporter.” I sigh.

“I thought I did but it just didn’t live up to what I thought it would be like.” he shrugs, “Guess I just expected it to be more fun.” 

“It can be but you have to make it fun most of the time.” I say as the cab pulls up.


	9. Pizza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete gets home from the charity event to find Patrick sitting on his step with pizza.....

I close the cab door and walk up to my apartment, I notice someone sitting on the steps. I watch for a minute and see that it’s Patrick with his head in his hands, and a pizza box beside him on the porch. He looks up as I get closer and his eyes widen. 

“Well don’t you look fancy.” he looks me up and down. “What’s with the tux?”

“I had to go to a charity event at an art gallery for a story.” I shrug. “Why are you moping on my step with a box of pizza?”

“Had a bad night and thought you would be okay to hang out, and I wasn’t sure if you’d eaten yet, but you weren’t home.” he looks up at me. “It’s probably cold now though.” 

“I’ve got a microwave, come on inside.” I step around him and unlock the door. He picks up the pizza and follows me inside. “What’s going on that you’ve been having a crap night?” I throw my keys on the small table by the door. 

“Joe called me like a week ago to tell me he and Andy were coming to visit tomorrow, but he called this morning and said he wouldn’t be able to make it because he’s sick and Andy won’t come here without Joe.” he slumps onto the couch. “I was looking forward to seeing them again, even before I moved here I didn’t have many friends and I kinda miss them.” 

“Well,” I shrug my jacket off and pull my tie over my head. “I’m sure they’ll reschedule ‘Trick, it’ll be fine.” 

“Yeah, I know but it still bums me out.” he takes his hat off and tosses it on the table. 

I put some of the pizza in the microwave and roll up my sleeves. “Well then how about we spend some time thinking about something else.” 

“Like what?” he shifts in his seat. 

“Working on any new music right now?” I pull the pizza out of the microwave and throw it on a couple of plates. I carry his out to him.

He takes it and rolls his eyes, “Yeah, I’m working on a song right now but it doesn’t sound quite right for some reason, I don’t know what’s up with it.” he takes a bite of his pizza. 

“Huh,” I get comfy with my food. “Got any others planned?” 

“Yeah when I get this one figured out I have three more in mind, but nothing for sure. What was the story you were working on tonight? How’d it go?” he turns to face me. 

“John asked me to cover a charity event at some art gallery. I had to take Brendon with me. It turned out to be a fundraiser thing for North Atlantic Right Whales, I’m all for it and I donated some but that party was boring as hell.” I laugh. “Now I just have to write up the article and pick out some of the pictures Brendon took to go with it.” 

“Sounds like boat loads of fun.” he sets his plate on the coffee table. 

“Yeah I guess.” I sigh. He gets up off the couch and strolls over to my bass sitting in the corner. He picks it up carefully and carries it back to the couch. He sets it in my lap and smiles. “Can you play please? I’ve been curious since I saw it sitting there on Sunday.” 

“I...uh…” I think about it for a second. “Fine, what do you want me to play?” I get up and plug the bass into the speaker sitting beside it’s stand.

“I don’t know, play…” he looks around and thinks. “Play one of my songs.” he laughs, looking at my desk where the case for his CD sits. “I see you went and bought a copy.” 

“Yeah, my internet is slow and shitty and I always check out the music of people I do articles on, your stuff is pretty good but does it even have a bass line?” I ask him as I rummage around trying to find a guitar pick, I know I’ve got one somewhere. I think I do anyway, I haven’t played this thing since...I don’t even know when. 

“Yeah but not a very good one, it simple, just to back the music up and make it sound better but the guy that does it only does simple stuff and he’s not great at it so you can kind of improvise if you want.” He reaches in his pocket and throws something at me. I look at the floor where it landed, a pick. 

“Thanks,” I sit on one of the dining table’s chairs and try to think of one of his songs I could play. 

I decide on one and fiddle with the controls and crap on the bass and speaker to get the right sound. I start to play and focus only on my playing, not looking at him and tuning out anything outside the sound coming from the speaker. I do improvise like he said to, throwing in some stuff to compliment what I remember the guitar sounding like on the song. I stop when I hear someone from the next apartment over banging on the wall calling for me to shut that shit off. I look up at ‘Trick who is just sitting there staring at me. 

“What?” I ask as I unplug everything and put it back the way it was. I toss him his pick and flop onto the couch beside him. I look at him again when I don’t get a response. “What?!” I lean away from him.

“Not good?” his voice cracks. “Not good my ass!” 

“I have no idea what you are talking about, I’m mediocre at best and it’s just a stupid hobby I picked up as a teenager.” I roll my eyes, this is the way Joe was about it too.

“Like hell, you…” he sighs, “who ever told you that you aren’t good cause I’d like to slap them.” 

“Myself, I never thought I was good so no one ever had to tell me.” I say ignoring the look he keeps giving me. I jump, however, when he slaps me. “Hey, look I don’t like my playing, I think it sucks, and I don’t generally like performing in front of more that a couple people. That’s the end of that conversation okay?” 

He sighs, “I’m not done with this conversation, we will talk about this because I am certain it’s complete bullshit and you doubt yourself too much.” 

“You sound like Joe,” I mutter.

“Good, because he’s right.” he glares at me. 

I laugh and shake my head, “Want some more pizza?” I pick up his plate with mine. 

“Sure.” he says as I head out to the kitchen. “You know you look good like that.” 

“Like what?” I ask while I put the pizza in the microwave. 

“The dress shirt unbuttoned a bit with the sleeves rolled up and dress pants but bare feet and messy hair, kinda like you just got home from some big time job and said fuck it.” he laughs, I look back to see him grinning ear to ear. “The tattoos all up your arms kinda add to it too.”

I look down and realize he’s right, I kind of do look like that. I laugh and shake my head. “Well enjoy it now cause it doesn’t happen very often. John tried to implement a formal dress code at work once but he found that everyone including him hated it so he just said to hell with it and gave up. There are some people who still dress up, like I know Caroline does but she’s the secretary at the front desk and John does when he’s got a big meeting, but most people just wear normal jeans and t-shirts. My sleeveless t-shirts are discouraged though and we still have to be presentable and appropriate but he’s not strict about it.” I throw the pizza on the plates and head back to the couch. 

“Really?” he tries to pick his pizza up but burns his fingers and immediately drops it. “You dress up for events though.” 

“Only when I have to, John likes to send me to those just to bug me. Last event I did wasn’t so bad though, it was a fair thing at a school to raise awareness for…fire safety I think. There were fire fighters there so I guess it had to have been that.” I pick a piece of pepperoni off my pizza and eat it. 

“Doesn’t sound too bad, you said you took Brendon with you? I thought he was a reporter, why’d they need two of you?” he arches an eyebrow. 

“No he’s a photographer now, John reassigned him as of Friday.” 

“Why’d he get reassigned?” Patrick tries again with his pizza, this time it’s cooled down a bit.

“Because he was bored with his work so he procrastinated a lot, or just didn’t put in a very good effort. Most people probably would have fired him but John saw the opportunity to fix two problems at once and took it.” I eat some of my pizza. 

“You only listed one problem, what was the other?” he is listening attentively.

“I…” I think of how to word it so he’ll leave it alone. “He figured he’d save some drama and bullshit by giving me my own assigned photographer so the others that actually work in that department wouldn’t be forced to work with me.” 

“Drama? Why would the actual photographers have a problem working with a reporter, isn’t that kind of their job?” his voice sounds concerned now. “Do they have a problem with you or something?” 

Of course he’s not going to leave it alone. “Yeah something like that. They are refusing to work with me because of a stupid rumour. Normally John would probably tell them to suck it up and get over it but he’s more concerned about my safety and well being.” 

“Excuse me, your safety?” he puts his food aside. “Pete what is going on?” I look at him and he has completely turned to face me, he looks pissed off that there would even be the possibility of a threat towards me. 

“Someone…” I sigh and set my pizza down. “Someone saw me at a bar the one night and a girl had approached me, and I guess they figured she was pretty but they were obviously not close to us or they’d have known she smelled and looked nasty, but I turned her down when she started hitting on me, I didn’t want anything to do with her, and they took that to mean that I was gay and started spreading it around at work that I am.” 

He stares at me but doesn’t seem to be paying attention to me anymore, he looks furious. “John is just taking preventative measures in case anyone says anything to me or tries to start anything, he’s already said that if he hears so much as one more thing about it at work the person blabbering will get mailroom duty for a month and he’s not kidding.” his face doesn’t get any less murderous. “He told me he doesn’t care one way or the other and doesn’t even think that I have to confirm or deny it, even to him, but that he’d rather not take the chance because people have a tendency to believe what they want.” 

He sits there and stews for a second, “That..” He finally tries to speak after several minutes. “That is complete and utter bullshit, what the hell is wrong with people?” 

“Patrick, you know what is wrong with people, that’s why you are still in the closet too.” I sigh.

He thinks about it for a second and nods. “Yeah but still, they wouldn’t actually hurt you would they? They’d be dumb to try it.” 

“Why? I’m a short guy and don’t generally look like much of a threat. We don’t know if they would but that’s why John doesn’t want to chance it.” I shift uncomfortably. “Which is why Brendon was reassigned instead of fired. John knows he’s a friend of mine and knows he wouldn’t hurt me or start any stupid bullshit about it.” I shake my head.

“Does Brendon know?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah he was the one who told me about the rumour first. He joked when he found out what the event was that it was a date.” I laugh to myself. “He’s fine about the whole thing and doesn’t make a big deal about it.” 

He makes a face, “A date?” he laughs. “At least he’s not a dick about it. Do Andy and Joe know?” 

“Yeah, they’ve known since I figured it out. They’ve always been cool about it. Do they know about you?” I watch him as he calms down some.

“Yeah, they were the first to bring it up actually, most people just assumed I was and it took me forever to figure it out. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, I just wasn’t attracted to girls and one day Joe was like okay dude listen, you’re not attracted to girls? so I shook my head, and he was like well have you considered the fact that you might be gay? At first I was a little upset that he’d say that, my family was never real fond of homosexuals, but I thought about it and experimented and eventually I realized he was right. My parents have accepted it but my grandma is still not real fond of the idea.” he looks at the ceiling. “The whole thing was kind of ridiculous.”

I smile and watch him for a minute, he doesn’t move other than the rise and fall of his chest. He just sits there, his mind working over something. After a couple minutes he seems to give up and looks at me. 

“So what were your plans for the night before you came home to find me sitting on your step?” he asks, seeming to have calmed down. 

“I had planned to order in some chinese food or something and watch a movie.” I laugh looking at our plates still sitting on the coffee table. 

“We could still watch a movie if you want.” he offers. 

I nod, “Sounds good to me, got anything in mind?” 

“Uh..” he thinks for a minute. “Hey do you have the newest Pirates of the Caribbean movie? What is it called...uh?” 

“At World’s End? Yeah I’ve got it, I got it as soon as it came out, I meant to watch it but didn’t get around to it.” I get up and search through the pile of movies on my bookshelf. I pull At World’s End out of the middle of the pile and put it in the DVD player. “Want a drink?” 

“Just water, thanks Pete.” he smiles.


	10. Brendon is a Pain in the Ass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brendon is a scheming little shit, the entire chapter is pretty much him being a pain....oh and a thing I'm sure ya'll have been waiting for.....

I sit at my desk thinking about how the last two weeks have gone. A pattern has developed. I meet ‘Trick at the train station and walk to work with him, work all day and goof off with Brendon, and at night if I don’t have somewhere to go I spend the evening with ‘Trick at my place. If I do have an event or something I text him and he comes over later with food. He joins us on Saturdays for game night without question. 

I’m snapped out of my own little world by Brendon waving his hand in front of my face. “Eh, Pete, man focus.” he shoves my shoulder gently. 

“Yeah sorry, was off in lala land a bit there I guess.” I laugh and refocus on the half finished article in front of me.

“So, Pete?” Brendon starts in a curious tone that I should probably be worried about.

“Hmm?” I respond only half paying attention to him. 

“Are you and Patrick dating yet or what?” he asks, quietly so no one will overhear. 

I sit bolt upright though. “Uh…..” my tongue seems to stop working. “I...no, I don’t think so. I mean neither of us has asked the other, we just hang out. He’s...he’s a good friend.” I manage to stutter out. 

“Have you kissed him?” he laughs at my inability to respond like a normal person. 

“Uh...yeah.” I choke on every syllable. 

“More than once?” he pushes even more. I don’t get why he’s even bugging me about this.

“Yeah, I guess, I mean technically the first time he kissed me, but the second time I’ll take credit for.” I say my face no doubt turning a bright shade of red. 

“Then ask the guy out already! Holy shit, man, why are you sitting here waiting?” he says exasperatedly. “What are you waiting for?” 

“We haven’t known each other that long.” I shrug off his almost aggravated tone.

“Look, you are with him everyday, and don’t try and lie to me and say you are not, I’m not dumb. He’s at your apartment every night and you guys get insanely flirty on game night when you’ve been drinking. Ask him out already or I’ll get Caroline involved.” he threatens. Caroline is well known for setting people up when they refuse to acknowledge a connection. 

“Fine.” I throw my hands up in surrender. “But leave her out of it, that’s the last thing I need.” 

“I’ll leave her out of it for now.” he promises. 

I roll my eyes at him. “Why do you care?” 

“Because I’m your friend and this is ridiculous, you’re a grown man now act like it.” he laughs. 

I shake my head and turn back to my computer. 

“Hey Pete?” he says after a few minutes of silence. 

“What?” I peek at him out of the corner of my eye and see a mischievous grin plastered across his goofy face, his dark eyes twinkling evilly. Oh god.

“What do you want for your birthday?” he asks, a tad louder than I’d like. “I mean you are turning 29 next week you old man.” I clamp my hand over his mouth but not fast enough. John comes strolling out of his office. I let go of Brendon and rest my head in my hands. 

“Wentz it’s not like I didn’t already know when your birthday is, but Urie raises an excellent question.” John leans on the partition wall behind me. John has kind of treated me like a son since I started working here. I can honestly say he gets me something every year no matter how much I tell him not to, and I can’t say I’ve seen him do that for anyone else that works here other than Caroline but she is his niece so that is understandable. 

“I don’t know, there isn’t really anything I had in mind, we go over this every year John and I never have a helpful answer for you. You know I hate my birthday.” I sigh and sink down into my chair, wishing I could skip the whole ordeal. My family wanted to come see me but I told them I was busy even though I simply plan on hiding in my apartment with the door locked and my phone turned off till it’s over. Andy’s birthday is tomorrow and I look forward to calling him more than my own birthday. 

“Either way man you know we are not doing game night tomorrow, and Caroline and I have put entirely too much effort into planning your party for you to get to skip out on it. No way man. Your ass will be at my place whether you like it or not.” he laughs. He means well, I know that, but I can’t help but feel my mood take a downwards dive at the thought of it. 

“Whatever, it’s not like you’re going to give me much of an option.” I roll my eyes. 

“No he’s not, I’m picking you up at your place at seven.” John laughs, he’s the only one of us that drives. I take the train and Caroline gets a cab with Brendon because they live across the street from each other, but John has a car and actually drives. 

“Fine, whatever, I don’t get why you guys insist on doing this to me every year.” I fold my arms across my chest and glare at Brendon, the usual instigator of my current predicament. 

“Because we love ya man.” he chuckles, and turns to John. They start whispering about whatever and I decide not to try and listen in. Chances are I don’t want to know right now. 

~~~~~

I wake up to the sound of my alarm going off. I look at the clock and it’s about noon. I sit up and swing my feet over the side of the bed. I am so not ready for today. I grab my phone off the bedside table and flip it open. Three texts, one from Patrick, one from Brendon, and one from Caroline.

I walk out to the kitchen as I read them. I click on the one from Caroline first. 

“hey Pete, see u at the party 2night?” I shake my head, and move on.

I click on the one from Brendon. “hey man, cya 2night, don’t forget to wear something nice and remember what I said about Patrick ;)” I shake my head again but actually answer that one. 

“Yeah yeah I know, cool it, cya 2night.” I send and then click on the message from Patrick. 

“Hey Pete, game night still on 2night?” I sigh, and grab the orange juice from the fridge. 

“No, plans I sadly can’t escape but didn’t make myself.” I send that and then think for a second and follow it up with. “Hey can you come over?” 

I pour a glass of juice and my phone goes off. “you mean like now?” I chuckle. 

“If you want.” I send back, I look at the counter behind me. Bagels for breakfast or toast, I contemplate. 

“On my way :)” is the response when my phone goes off again. I say fuck it on breakfast and go back to my room to get dressed. Skinny jeans and a plain black t-shirt. I look at my hair in the mirror and it could use some help. I carefully straighten what’s gone weird on me and comb it till it sits properly. By the time I’m done I hear a knock on the door. 

I open the door and let Patrick in. He’s actually wearing normal black skinny jeans with his usual ensemble today, rather than brightly coloured ones. 

“So why no game night tonight?” he asks as he shrugs off his coat. 

“Brendon, Caroline, and John do this every year. I hate my birthday but they make me celebrate anyway.” I sigh frustrated with the whole thing. 

“It’s your birthday today?” he asks, shocked.

“No, it’s on Thursday, but they are doing the party today because that’s the middle of the week and we all have to work.” I flop down onto the couch. 

“Oh, why don’t you like your birthday?” he sits beside me. 

“I hate when people make a big fuss about me like that. Brendon is the worst about it and Caroline helps him. John used to roll his eyes at them but now he joins in.” I sink into the back of the couch, wishing I could just skip it all.

“Well you know they are just trying to show they care, they want to celebrate the day you were born. It’s a decent reason to celebrate.” he smiles. 

“Sure it is.” I roll my eyes at him. 

“So, why’d you ask me to come over?” he smiles, chuckling quietly.

“To hang out.” I shrug, he watches me with a look on his face that says he sees through my bullshit. “And I…” I take a deep breath. “I kinda wanted to ask you something.”

“Okay, you have my full attention, what did you want to ask me?” he turns so that he is sitting sideways on the couch, facing me.

“I...uh…” I can feel my face heating up. Why am I acting like a silly teenager, this is ridiculous. “I wanted to ask you if you’d want to go out with me.” I say quickly before I can change my mind and I feel myself tense up and wait for him to respond. He just kinda sits there for a second or two. 

“I didn’t think you were ever going to ask.” he smiles and looks at his feet. “Of course.” he looks back up at me. 

I take hold of his face with one hand and kiss him gently. He pushes into the kiss a bit before pulling away, his face lit up, making his pretty blue-green eyes seem bigger and brighter than normal. I can’t help but smile and laugh. He moves over and cuddles into me. My phone goes off in my pocket and I jump, causing him to lean away from me.

“What was that?” he laughs at me as I fish my phone out of my pocket. 

I flip it open and look at the screen. A text from Brendon. I open it. “I don’t have Patrick’s number so do me a favour and invite him, John says he’ll pick him up too if you can give me the address.” I turn the phone so Patrick can see the screen. 

“Hell yes I’m going.” he exclaims, I could have guessed without even having shown him the text.

I nod and text Brendon back. “He says hell yeah, John can just come to my place at 7 though cause that’s where Patrick is.” 

“Okie Dokie ;)” is what I get back for that one. Goddamn Brendon. I toss my phone on the coffee table and turn my focus back to Patrick. 

“John won’t be here to get us till seven, what do you want to do till then?” I ask him as he leans back against me, apparently having decided I’m done jumping. 

“I don’t know, it’s like one-thirty, what can we do for a few hours? Are we gonna eat before we go?” he asks, looking up at me. 

“No, Brendon and Caroline always make dinner. I’ve got video games, not many of them mind you, but I’ve got some.” I shrug. 

“What system do you have?” he sits up. 

“I’ve got the Wii, my PlayStation system broke so all I’ve got is the Wii.” I say, “The games I’ve got are stacked on the TV stand if you want to pick one.” he gets up and wanders over to the TV stand to look through the whole five games I’ve got. 

He turns around and gives me a look. “Really? You have Mario, Mario Kart, Soccer, Football, and Guitar Hero?” 

“Yeah all the basics.” I laugh as he rolls his eyes and shakes his head, pulling one of the games out of the pile and putting it in the system. “What did you pick?” I ask and click the power button for the TV on the remote. He picks up the Wii remotes off the TV stand and the two guitars I have sitting beside the couch. 

“I’m so gonna kick your ass at this.” he laughs, handing me one of each. 

“Somehow I doubt that.” I laugh and set up the game. “Oh shit hold on a second, I gotta make a phone call before we play.” I pick up my phone, flip it open, and dial Andy’s number. “I do this every year, I can’t believe I almost forgot.” I put it on speaker so Patrick can join in, he just gives me a what the fuck look. 

It rings a few times before Andy answers. “Hey Pete, man it’s been a while.” his voice comes through loud and clear and a look of realization flashes across Patrick’s face. 

“Hey man, yeah guess it has been but guess what?” I smile as I hear him sigh. 

“This again man, every year.” he laughs. “Joe got me this morning already.” 

“Well too bad cause I wasn’t there so you’re getting it again.” I look up at ‘Trick, “I’ve got someone else here with me this year though.” 

“Oh? Who?” he asks, the curiosity heavy in his voice.

“Hey Andy, it’s Patrick.” he speaks up, barely containing a laugh. 

“Patrick!” he almost yells. “When did you meet Pete, man? That’s fucking awesome, Joe is gonna flip out.” 

“Met him a few weeks ago now I guess.” Patrick smiles. He sits down on the couch beside me. 

“Hold on,” he says and then we hear him yell away from the phone. “JOE! Get your ass in here. Dude, I saw you walking up to the front door.” There is some background noise and then Andy speaks near the phone again. “I got some people on the phone, get over here. Okay guys.” I hear the beep as Andy puts us on speaker.

“Hey Joe.” I say, and I listen as Joe sits down, or that’s what it sounds like anyway.

“Pete? Dude, nice to hear from ya.” he laughs. 

“Hey Joe.” Patrick says and Joe goes quiet. 

“Alright that first one was for sure Pete, but who's hanging out with him? That almost sounded like..” he starts and then Andy cuts him off. 

“It’s Patrick, those little shits found each other a few weeks ago apparently.” Andy says and me and Patrick lose our composure completely. 

“Patrick? Oh my god, hey man sorry we didn’t make it out to see you. How the hell did you manage to find Pete? Like what are the chances of that?” he laughs, “Me and Andy always meant to introduce you guys but the chance never really came up, I guess we don’t need to now.” 

“Hey man it’s ok, and we work across the street from each other.” ‘Trick says leaning close to the phone. 

“That’s kind of awesome actually, we are gonna try and come see you like in a few weeks, Pete should hang out with us too.” Andy says and Joe laughs in the background. 

“You’re damn right he will.” he says smiling at me, I roll my eyes. 

“Alright, Pete you called for a reason, get it over with.” Andy sighs and I hear an “Oh fuck yeah” from Joe. 

I look at Patrick who counts to three on his fingers, before we break into a chorus of happy birthday, accompanied by a giggling Joe on the other end of the line. When we finish I hear a thump on their end of the line and Joe starts laughing even harder.

“What happened?” I ask, as Patrick shrugs. 

“I pushed Joe off his chair. Bugger thinks he’s gonna get away with doing that more than once today he’s sadly mistaken.” Andy laughs. “Yeah laugh it up asshole, just you wait, I’m gonna get you back for the silly string this morning.” I hear Joe laugh even louder. “Thanks though guys. Should probably get going before this call gets too expensive but we will for sure let you know when we are coming to Chicago to see you guys. Bye.” Andy says. 

“Bye guys!” Joe hollers in the background. 

“Talk to you guys soon.” I say at the same time as Patrick echoes their goodbye. 

I snap the phone shut as I hear Andy hang up. “I cannot believe I almost forgot about that.” I shake my head.

Patrick picks up the game guitar again. “Ready to have your ass handed to you?” he laughs. 

“In your dreams Lunchbox.” I laugh and pick up mine.


	11. Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete's birthday party.....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't gonna post this yet but writing has been coming pretty fast lately and I feel like I've got enough chapters stored up to post this now without worrying. Here you go Sunshine. 
> 
> This Chapter introduces 5 new characters, these characters are based of 4 people I know (they know who they are and they all volunteered or agreed to let me make a character out of them) and one is based off me (I dare you to guess which one) I did this because I was trying to write this and for the life of me could not come up with some more co-workers for Brendon and Pete to have Brendon invite.

I watch as Patrick makes good on his promise to kick my ass at Guitar Hero till I hear a knock on the door. I get up and open it to reveal John standing there. 

“Hey Wentz, you guys ready to go?” he asks, stepping into the apartment. 

“Yeah I think so just hold on a second.” I look at Patrick who has stopped playing and is staring at John. John is an older man, in his fifties at least though he won’t tell us how old he is, but he’s taller than of us. He doesn’t look old, just weathered. He’s traded in his usual button down and khakis for jeans and a blue cotton long sleeve shirt. His graying brown hair is brush back neatly as always and his beard is well maintained. He pushes his glasses up on his nose. “Oh, John this is Patrick.” I turn to Patrick. “Patrick this is my boss, John.” I start turning off the TV and stuff. 

Patrick shakes the hand John offers him and grabs his leather jacket, pulling it on and adjusting his hat. “Nice to meet you.” he says quietly. 

“You too Patrick. Alright let’s go, train is leaving the station Wentz.” John laughs and heads out the door ahead of us. 

“Hey,” I catch Patrick’s arm as he tries to go out the door. “You sure you’re okay? There is gonna be a quite a few people you don’t know I think. I don’t know who all Brendon and Caroline invited.” 

“I’ll be fine, the way I see it, if I can handle drunk Brendon on game nights I should be able to handle any assortment of people he knows.” He smiles at me, and honestly I guess he has a point. I nod and grab my sweater. We hop into John’s car and buckle in. 

~~~~~

We pull up in front of Brendon’s apartment and climb out of the car. John grabs something off the seat beside him and follows us up to the door. I knock and Brendon opens up, with a ridiculous grin, and hugs me. When he finally make it in the door I see and odd assortment of people. Caroline is in the kitchen talking to two people. One is a tall guy, neat and tidy looking, his sandy hair brushed over in a way that says all business. The way he moves as he talks to her though says that he’s anything but, and his plaid shirt suggests a more laid back approach to everything. The other is a smaller girl, wearing glasses and what looks like a Disney themed t-shirt. She nervously brushes her dark brown hair behind her ear and fixing her already straight bangs. 

On the other side of the room two girls sit together talking. The older looking on is a pale blonde, but the underside of her hair is dark brown, she looks extremely uncomfortable and seems to be keeping back against the wall. The girl she’s talking to looks a bit younger and I do actually recognize her. When John decided he didn’t care what his employees looked like he showed it with his personal assistant. Her hair is bleached and kind of half done with bright red. She’s got lip and eyebrow piercings and a tattoo on her shoulder. She seems to know the uncomfortable girl pretty well and is trying to get her to loosen up from the look of it. 

I turn to look at Brendon as another girl materializes from I don’t even know where. She’s got more energy and happy in her than I can handle. She’s tall and has wild curly brown hair. She walks right up to us. 

“Hi, it’s nice to actually meet you, I’m Jade.” she offers me her hand and I shake it. 

“I’m Pete, this is Patrick.” I gesture to him, he offers his hand to her. She enthusiastically shakes it. 

“I’ve never seen you around the office Patrick, are you new?” She smiles. 

“No, I work at the studio across the street.” He says quietly, standing half behind me. 

“Huh, neat.” She smiles and walks over to join the two other girls. She pokes at the uncomfortable one who smiles gently at her as she flops down beside her. 

Brendon catches my attention, “Well Happy Birthday man, the issue with you keeping to yourself is I totally had to improvise when inviting people.” He shakes his head. “So we’ve got Eric and Jenna.” He gestures to the people talking to Caroline. “Eric is a reporter, I’m sure you’ve heard him even if you’ve never seen him, he’s the one that randomly breaks into song in the other office room. He’s kind of a goofy guy. Jenna is a photographer, and don’t worry, she mostly kind of keeps to herself so she isn’t one of the ones being a dick about the rumours.” 

I nod, I have heard Eric before, he likes to goof around almost as much as Brendon from what I’ve heard. He also likes to randomly sing, but he at least maintains a variety, it’s never the same thing. There was one week where he had a stupid commercial jingle stuck in his head but other than that he usually sings or hums something different every time. 

“You know Raven, John’s assistant, she’s alright, kinda nutty but that’s ok.” He laughs. “You just met Jade, also a photographer but again not one of the dicks, she specializes in animal photography so she isn’t at the office much. The other girl is her younger sister Dani, she doesn’t really like people but she’s ok, she’s the reporter that does those pieces on arrests and any crap that would freak other people out. She also does the one comic series about that weird cat.” He shakes his head, “I enjoy bugging her at the office when you’re not around, she doesn’t usually react but when she does it’s funny, she growls.” 

My eyes widen, that is odd but I have read the cat comic he is talking about. Caroline notices me and motions me over. I take Patrick’s hand, if I’m going to go through this he’s coming with me, so I cling to his hand like a lifeline. 

“Hey Pete,” she smiles. “Hey Patrick, Brendon never mentioned inviting you.” 

“It was a last minute thing, I thought about telling Pete to invite him when we were at work yesterday but I didn’t actually tell him to invite him till when I texted him earlier.” Brendon leans against the counter. 

“Well it’s good to see you.” Caroline turns to look at the timer on the oven. “Dinner should be ready soon.” 

Patrick squeezes my hand and leans into me a little. I look at him, he looks so uncomfortable right now, but before I can say anything Caroline speaks up again. 

“Oh, Pete, this is Eric and Jenna.” She smiles and gestures toward them. 

“Yeah, Brendon said something like that.” I offer my free hand to Eric. “Nice to meet the guy behind the distant noise at the office.” 

Eric laughs, “Yeah guess I’m a bit loud but people don’t complain so I guess it’s welcome.” He shrugs. “Happy Birthday by the way, 29 you’re getting up there.” He winks and laughs. “I hit 30 this year, kinda insane.” 

I laugh, “Yeah I guess, and thanks, my birthday isn’t till Thursday but Brendon and Caroline wanted to do the party today.” 

“Makes sense, it’s easier to throw a party on a weekend than in the middle of the week.” He nods. 

“Is that the Patrick you did the article on?” Jenna pipes up. I smile and nod. “I checked out your music after I read Pete’s article and it’s actually really good.” 

Patrick nods. “Thanks.” He actually smiles. “I’m glad you like it.” 

Jade pops up beside us, along with Raven, and Brendon has an arm around Dani, kind of pushing her towards us, she obviously didn’t willingly leave her seat. He is all smiles though, I doubt he sees how uncomfortable she is with all of this. 

John taps my shoulder and hands me the thing he’d grabbed off the seat before we left the car. It’s a gift wrapped box with an envelope taped to the top. I take it and open the envelope to find it’s a card. “Happy Birthday Pete.” and it’s signed by not just John but everyone here except Patrick. 

“We all chipped in to get ya something we knew you’d like.” John smiles as I set down the card. I tear open the sparkly blue wrapping paper, curious as to what they could have gotten me. I reveal that it is in fact a box, it’s a cell phone box. I study the box a little closer. It’s the latest Sidekick phone. 

“Guys,” I protest but John cuts me off again. 

“It’s a useful gift, it’ll help with work and just in general.” He says, “I don’t want to hear a word of complain young man or I’ll find some despicable project for you on Monday.” He laughs, he’s not serious about the project. 

“Thanks guys, this is great.” I smile. Caroline suddenly looks at the oven just before it beeps annoyingly. 

“Dinner's ready.” She announces, smiling and grabbing the oven mitts. 

~~~~~

After an amazing dinner Brendon brings a cake out of the fridge. They all sing and laugh as I bury my face in my hands. Then Brendon brings out the case of beer and a stack of board games. The rest of the night is fun. Patrick gets Dani to speak for once. Brendon and Eric sing some stupid commercial jingles till John hollers at them that he doesn’t want to hear anymore of that crap. Raven kicks our asses at Monopoly, but get’s her ass handed to her in The Game of Life by Jenna. Jade and Dani are apparently good at Pictionary when they team up. By the time I go home I feel like I could actually be friends with these people and I begin to wonder why it’s the first time John, Caroline and Brendon thought to invite other people. John didn’t drink at all so he gives me a ride home and takes Patrick home too. I set my new phone on the table, I’ll figure that thing out in the morning, and immediately head for my bed. I instinctively curl up under my blanket and fall asleep before I even realize.


	12. The Incident

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> someone tests Pete's ability to control himself.....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I.........before you read this chapter I AM SO SORRY! I am sorry about any feels that happen! <3 This chapter had an intended way it was gonna go and then I started writing and something entirely outside the plan happened ok, I'm sorry.

I sit at my desk finishing up the latest story John’s given me. After the party a couple weeks ago he’s decided to rearrange the offices. Brendon’s desk is no longer separated from mine since John had the one wall between our cubicles taken out. Guess he got sick of Brendon’s chair poking out the side of my cubicle and blocking the way. Dani and Eric are now across the way from us. Apparently Jenna works with them a lot, so she’s always in and out from the Photography department, and when Jade is in town she spends most of her time perched on her sister’s desk. Which is where she is now, having just gotten back from a trip to Nova Scotia. 

“It was awesome, I got to take pictures of this amazing pod of whales.” She tells Dani, who doesn’t seem to be paying attention at first glance, she doodles on a pad of paper. Upon looking closer though she is nodding and mumbling responses as Jade talks. “You would have loved the landscape this time of year, it’s beautiful.” I hear her say. Dani says something but I don’t hear her.

Brendon throws a pencil at me to get my attention. “What do you want?” I throw it back at him. 

“Your phone is buzzing, it’s gone off like three times already, it’s probably Patrick so answer it already will you.” He laughs. 

I pick it up and he’s right, it’s Patrick. “Pete, r u busy?” I scroll down. “Can u come here plz?” And “Pete I am serious, I need u.” I sit there and stare at it, wondering what could be wrong, for a second before I send back. “U at the studio?” 

“Yes.” He sends back, I jump out of my chair and walk over to John’s office door, which is open as always.

“Hey John, I’m going out I’ll be back soon hopefully.” I say and he looks up from his computer.

“Everything alright Pete?” He asks, concern flooding his voice. I must look worried. 

“I hope so, something is up with Patrick and I gotta go see what’s up but I should be back soon.” I say apologetically.

“You go make sure he’s ok, don’t worry about your story, it’ll still be there whenever you get back.” He nods and shoos me away. I take off down the stairs and out the door. I cross the street and walk into the studio. 

“Can I help you sir?” The woman sitting at the desk asks. 

“I’m here to see Patrick, he texted me, I know where I’m going though.” I say as calmly as I can.

“Can I get your name?” She asks politely. Seeing that I’m in a bit of a hurry. 

“Pete.” I say, hoping that is all she needs. 

“Pete Wentz?” She asks and I nod. “You are on Mr.Stump’s list. Head on up.” She smiles and I wave at her and head for the elevator. Patrick had told me where the studio he works in is in case I ever had to find him. Just as I had told him how to find my desk in the office. He had neglected to tell me they kept lists of people who were allowed to come in here to see different people. 

When the elevator doors open on the fifth floor I go left, down the hall to the last door on the right, just like he told me. He’s sitting in a chair with his knees hugged to his chest, his face buried against them. 

“Hey, ‘Trick I’m here.” I say crouching in front of his chair, resting a hand on his knee. He looks up and I see the tears on his face. “What is going on? Do I need to kick an ass?” I ask, biting back the growl caused by the sight of him crying. Who the fuck did this to him and where are they? That’s my primary thought process at the moment. 

“I…” his voice shakes, he’s scared. I pull him forward into a hug, wrapping my arms tight around him. He leans his face into my neck and hides there, curling his arms up between us. He seems smaller than he is when he does that. His hat falls off so I carefully pick it up and put it off to the side. 

“It’s okay baby.” I murmur to him. “Just talk to me, tell me what is going on, take your time. You’re gonna be ok.” I pull back a bit and look at him. My heart tightens. “What’s going on?” 

“I don’t know what happened, I…” he shakes as he tries to talk. “I didn’t know what to do I just knew I needed you.” 

“Ok, ok but why, what happened that you needed me?” I say more gently, realizing my tone probably hasn’t been helping him at all. 

“I gave the lyrics to my new song to the guy running the soundboard, he usually likes to read them over to get a sense of what we are going to be doing.” He hiccups a little, trying to breathe evenly and calmly and getting himself worked up again in the process. “I don’t know what part of the song it was that set him off but he snapped, he freaked out and said some horrible things and won’t work with me anymore. I guess I’m out of the closet now.” He starts crying again. He’s told me on various occasions about how he was afraid to come out for this very reason, because he knew some people he worked with would react badly. 

“Did he hurt you?” I look him over, he kind of resists which makes me think he did. “Patrick, listen to me, did he hit you?” I hold him still. 

“I don’t think he meant to, I was standing too close.” He says quietly. 

“Does it hurt?” I ask and he nods slightly. “Let me look.” He tilts his head to the side and I suddenly see the red hand print across his face, it looks like he got backhanded. I don’t know how I missed it before. Though he is already kind of red from crying and being upset. “Where is he?” I demand and Patrick shakes his head. “I’m not going to hurt him, where is he?” I say, he still shakes his head. 

Someone knocks on the door and an older man pokes his head in. I shoo him out and signal for him to wait outside the door. I kiss Patrick on the forehead and follow the man out. 

“What the fuck is going on here?” I demand from him. 

“There was an incident, Patrick wanted us to go away so we left him. The guy who hit him is sitting in my office awaiting his punishment but the way I run this place I’d like Patrick to make that decision. His manager has his opinion on it but I’d still like Patrick to chose.” The man says calmly, seeing how pissed off I am and assessing how he should choose his words. “Am I to assume you are Patrick’s boyfriend.” 

“You’re damn right I am.” I glare at him, he may be bigger than me but I’m pissed. “You can’t ask Patrick to make that call, he’ll go too easy on the guy and it’ll only upset him further. I’ll handle it.” I say, glancing back at Patrick. When I met him he was all sass and whatever but I know he’d never have the heart to punish someone for something they did. “Which way is your office?” His eyes go wide. “I promise I won’t hit him,” he looks at me doubtfully,. “Any harder than he hit Patrick.” 

He seems to consider his options before nodding. “Last door on the left at the other end of the building.” He says, resigning to the fact that I’d find out anyway. 

I immediately take off in that direction. He follows close behind, obviously not sure what to make of me. I find the right door and push it open. The guy sitting in the chair looks like every douchebag that ever picked on a gay kid. I glare at him as he sizes me up and laughs.

“Let me guess, the boyfriend.” He laughs to himself, “Why am I not surpris…” I cut him off with a sharp backhand across his face. 

“Let me make something clear to you.” I stand in front of him. “If I ever hear or see that you’ve laid a hand to Patrick again I will make sure you never forget it. I am not going to ask your boss to fire you because Patrick would probably be upset with me if I did, instead I’m going to demand that you be reassigned and that you not be allowed to work with or be anywhere near Patrick again.” I look up at the older man, who nods in approval. “Do I make myself quite clear?” 

He sits there and rubs at his face where I hit him. He simply nods, frowning at me in shock. 

“Good, and you just make sure you don’t forget it.” I say before walking out of the room, moving as fast as I can back to Patrick. 

He’s exactly where I left him but holding a notebook. “Can I see the song you wrote?” I ask sitting on the floor in front of him. He nods and hands me the notebook, already open to the page. I read it, and look at him. “What is it about?” 

“You,” he hides his face, “I couldn’t sleep one night and that just came to me, I wasn’t sure I would record it but it seemed silly not to, I should have just left it alone.” 

“It’s beautiful, I love it,” I smile at him. “You should still record it, I wanna hear what you wanted it to sound like.” He looks up at me. “They’ll get you a new sound guy and you’re not gonna have to see or deal with that guy anymore. He’s not allowed near you.” I say firmly. 

He studies me. “You didn’t hit him did you?” He looks worried. 

“No harder than he hit you, he’s fine, his ego might be wounded but he’s fine. They are reassigning him at my request.” I hold his chin in my hand and brush my thumb against his cheek. “I didn’t think you’d approve of me having him fired.” He shakes his head, and leans forward into me. “You’re gonna be ok.” We sit there for a few minutes before I sit him upright and examine his face, it’s faintly bruising along the jaw where he struck against the bone but the red has mostly faded. “Come back with me to the office, you’re not going to be doing any work today anyway.” He thinks about it and then nods. I grab his notebook and hat, and help him stand up. He brushes himself off and takes his hat from me, putting it neatly on his head. He grabs his bag and I take his hand, and lead him out of the room. 

The older man meets us just before we reach the elevator. “I’ll try and find you a new sound guy as quick as possible, take tomorrow off and we’ll see you again after that ok?” Patrick nods as the elevator doors open. We head down to the bottom floor and walk across the street. I hand him his notebook which he shoves in his bag. We walk past Caroline and Raven chatting at the front desk and up the stairs to the office. John is standing by Brendon’s desk talking to him when we walk in. 

“Patrick, you alright? Pete said something was going on but he didn’t know what.” John asks, his face full of concern. He’s accepted Patrick as part of the group. 

“I’m better now, it was a big stupid misunderstanding.” He says quietly while I grab an extra chair and put it beside my desk for him. 

“I’d hardly call a homophobic asshole marking up your face a misunderstanding.” I growl, the anger resurfacing. John’s eyes go wide and his jaw drops. He looks at Patrick and sees the mark on his jaw. 

“I’m assuming this person is not unscathed if Pete got within 10 feet of them.” He looks to me. 

“He’ll likely have a mark to match.” I roll my eyes. John knows I’m not typically violent unless it concerns protecting someone I care about, then all bets are off. 

“Good.” John furrows his brow and Brendon nods in agreement. “You never told me you’d finally asked Patrick out.” 

I look at him. “Why do you say finally?” I look to Brendon. “Was it really that obvious?” 

“In every conversation the guy popped up in.” John laughs at me. “I was waiting for it, but when did you ask him?” 

“The morning of the party, Brendon had told me that if I didn’t he’d get Caroline involved.” I roll my eyes, Patrick laughs. He’s heard this story before and thinks it’s hilarious.

John nods, “Fair enough. That’s playing dirty, Urie, you know that’s not fair.” He laughs. “But I’m glad you two are finally together.” He offers his hand to Patrick who takes it and squeaks in shock when John pulls him in and hugs him. “You’re always welcome here kid.” 

Patrick smiles and sits down in the chair I moved for him. I sit down in mine and say “If he starts calling you by your last name more often than your first don’t worry, it means he likes you and you are part of the team to him.” 

“Huh, okay, I’ll remember that.” He smiles at me. “So what do you do all day?” 

“I can guarantee it’s not as much fun as working in a studio.” I smile and flip my computer screen back on. I pull up the article I was working on and pull my notepad out of the drawer of my desk. “I sit here and type,” I pause and bat away the projectile that comes from Brendon. “And play random object tennis with Brendon. He’s worse than you and the muffin crumbs during our first interview.” I duck as Brendon then hurls an eraser at me, it bounces off the back wall of my cubicle and hits the back of my head anyway. He sits there and laughs so hard he falls out of his chair. “Idiot.” I mutter and hear laughter from Eric and Dani’s desks, I look up to see Jade and Eric laughing at me. I stick out my tongue and pull a face before turning back to my computer. 

“Is this normal?” Patrick asks stifling a giggle. 

“Ever since John made some changes to the office, those two used be in that other room kind of area.” I point to the other end of the building. “And there used to be a wall here. I gesture to the open air between my desk and Brendon’s. “Not that that deterred him much but it did prevent office supply tennis at least.” 

“You complaining, Pete?” Brendon grins evilly. 

“God no!” I say quickly, lord forbid I do that he’ll chuck something mean at me. Last time it was chewed gum, which I didn’t realize till I had to peel it off my hand. Gross. Patrick just sits there laughing. “I’m glad you find it funny.” I shake my head at him. He leans in and kisses me on the cheek. I blush and Brendon laughs, earning the eraser being chucked at his head by me.


	13. Patrick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> if you are reading this fic and find yourself thinking one of these chapters is not like the others....this is it....this is that chapter....this chapter is the incident from chapter 12, everything Pete didn't see, from Patrick's point of view....I'm sorry, it is a necessary evil. It's short though I promise.

I walk into the studio after walking to work with Pete, same as everyday. Anne waves as I walk past the front desk heading for the elevator. I get to the studio and no one is here yet. I pull up one of the chairs and pull out my notebook. I think I can go over this song one last time before I decide if I’m going to record it or not. I sit there and hum to myself, planning out how I want the basic tune to go. 

“Hey Patrick.” Steven says as he walks in and sets his bag down in front of the soundboard. He starts fiddling with things and getting it all set up. “So you wanted to start on a new song today?” 

“Hey Steven, yeah this one means a lot to me and I feel like I should record it.” I say as Richard pokes his head in, he the boss around here so he checks in all the time, even when I’m recording. He nods like all looks good and leaves again. Jason, my manager, wanders in with his coffee in hand. 

“Can I check it out?” Steven asks and I hand him the notebook. He usually checks out my songs before we start to get an idea if what is gonna be going on. 

Jason offers me the other coffee he’s carrying and pulls out his notebook. “So how long do you think this song is gonna take to get right?” 

“I’m hoping it’ll only take a couple tries, I feel good about this song and I want to get it out soon.” I laugh and fix my hat. It always takes more tries than I’d like to get a song right but I actually do feel really good about this one. 

I hear a little chuckle from Steven and turn to see him still reading the song. “Sounds like someone is head over heels…” he pauses and furrows his brow, studying something and I feel my stomach sink even before he looks up at me. When he does his face is twisted in outrage. “What the fuck is this shit?” He takes a step toward me. 

“It’s a song, what’s wrong Steven.” I say quietly, feeling a little uncomfortable. 

“What are you? Gay?” He growls. “‘And I feel lost in those golden eyes, his arms around me hold me tight.’” He quotes, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” I cower away from him as he gets really worked up. I hear Jason get up off the couch behind me, but not fast enough. It feels like a ton of bricks hits my face as Steven unexpectedly backhands me. I let out a strange noise as my ass hits the floor. Jason throws himself between me and Steven, restraining him and hollering for Richard. 

“What the hell is going on in here?” Richard looks flustered as he looks at Jason and Steven before noticing me on the floor, my hand holding my now throbbing jaw. “I asked a question, I expect a damn answer.” 

“I won’t work with that thing,” Steven spits. “I refuse to work with a fag.” 

“Take that moron to my office. I’ll be there in a minute.” Richard frowns at Jason, who nods and hauls Steven out of the room and down the hall, kicking and protesting the whole way. “You okay?” He crouches to get a look at me. 

“I’m fine, please just leave me alone.” I say, biting back tears, straining my voice against it. I will not cry I will not cry I will not cry. I tell myself over and over but to no avail. “Please.” I say quietly. 

“Okay, but I’ll be back in a couple minutes ok?” He studies me, eyes full of concern. He’s at least taking this better than I thought he would. I nod and he leaves the room. Closing the door behind him. 

I sit there in silence for a minute before I get up and go over to the chair I set my bag beside. I pull out my phone and text Pete. It’s the only thing that makes sense to me right now. 

“Pete r u busy?” I send and wait. No answer. 

“Can u come here plz?” I send and wait. Still no answer. 

“Pete I am serious, I need u.” I send and wait again. He still isn’t answering. I get ready to text him again when my phone finally buzzes. 

“U at the studio?” Is what I get. 

“Yes.” I send and get no other response, I can only assume he’s on his way. I bring my knees up and curl up as tight as I can. I hear yelling coming from the other end of the building. I can’t help it anymore, the tears come whether I want them to or not. My whole body shakes as I bury my face against my knees. My jaw still hurts and as I just let the tears go my chest starts to feel tight. Like a rubber band about two sizes too small has been wrapped around the bottom of my rib cage. It feels like forever before I finally stop. Then I hear the door open.

“Hey, ‘Trick I’m here.” He says and I look up to see him crouching in front of me, a hand on my knee. His face goes from calm concern to absolutely fury in two seconds. His gold eyes filling with rage. God I love this man.


	14. A Visit From Old Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe and Andy test Pete's ability to keep his cool.....

Patrick sits on my couch texting someone while I grab some bottles of juice from the fridge. I sit back beside him and hand him his. He takes it but doesn’t look away from his phone. 

“Who are you talking to?” I ask throwing my arm around his shoulders and getting comfy. 

“Jason, my manager, he says they found a new soundboard person already but that I still don’t have to come back till tomorrow.” He sets his phone on the table. “Sorry.” 

“No it’s fine, that’s kind of important.” I say and look down at him. The bruise on his jaw is darker today than it was yesterday and it bugs me even more. He’s got perfect, clear ivory skin and the offensive bruise looks so wrong there. “At least you’ll be able to go back to work instead of coming to work with me.” 

“I like coming to work with you.” He smiles up at me. I am just about to kiss him when there is a knock on the door. “Do you think that’s..?” 

“It had better be.” I get up and open the door. Joe throws his arms up. 

“Hey! Pete, man it’s been so long.” He hugs me and I laugh. 

“Yeah man. Glad you guys finally got here.” I let him inside and hug Andy.

“Listen, that’s was a hell of a drive. Half an hour in the car with him is torture” Andy says hugging me back. Joe makes his way over to Patrick. 

“Hey there, man, sorry it took us long to actually make it down here.” He says hugging him tight. When he pulls away and looks appalled. “What the fuck is this?” He gently pokes at the mark on Patrick’s face. I growl inaudibly and look away from it. Patrick notices and bats at Joe’s hand. Andy notices too and arches an eyebrow at me but I can’t say anything or I’ll snap. I hate that bruise. 

“It’s uh….” Patrick tries to draw attention away from me as Joe has started to notice my violent silence. “There was an incident and I think we are lucky Pete isn’t in jail or something.” 

“You didn’t do that did you Pete?” Andy looks worried. I forget they know about Patrick being gay. 

“No!” Patrick jumps in. “But he made the guy who did match. Pete would never.” He seems to see the growing tension in my jaw as I fight the anger and runs over to me. He wraps his arms around me and buries his face against my shoulder. “Can we talk about something else? This whole thing pisses him off a lot.” 

Andy and Joe just stand there staring at us. “You...you guys…” Joe fumbles for words. 

“What is going on here?” Andy manages for him. Patrick realizes he’s still hugging me and jumps, turning red. We weren’t sure if we’d tell them yet but it’s a little late for that now. 

“Some homophobic dick bag hit my boyfriend and I took care of it, it pisses me off that there’s a mark on his face and he’s hugging me in an effort to calm me down, what does it look like?” I say, having regained my ability to stay calm. 

Their eyes go wide and their jaws drop. Andy snaps out of it first. “Dude, that’s...that’s actually awesome.” He smiles looking between me and Patrick. “The thing about him being your boyfriend not the dick bag part.” He says quickly. 

Joe finally snaps out of it. “How long have you guys been together?” He asks. 

“Since just before Pete called Andy on his birthday, we didn’t tell you then because it had just happened and that’s not really an over the phone kind of thing, especially when you were just finding out we even knew each other.” ‘Trick says, happy that our friends can finally know and that they are taking it so well.

“Wow…” Andy says, “I never in a million years would have figured that you guys would like each other enough to date or I’d have made sure you met each other years ago.” He laughs and Joe joins in. “Would have saved us watching you two beat yourselves up over not being able to find anyone.” 

“Hey Andy,” I say and once he looks at me I flip him off. “It’s better that we met on our own anyway, gave us a chance to figure it out on our own.” I sit back down on the couch, ‘Trick automatically follows suit and curls into my side, fitting against me perfectly the way he always does. Andy and Joe pull up some of the dining table’s chairs. 

“Well, I guess that’s a fair point.” Andy says smiling and snickering. He hasn’t changed much. Neither has Joe, except he’s grown out his hair. Both guys are covered in tattoos like me, but neither has really changed, they look pretty much the same as I remember them. 

“How long are you guys here for?” Patrick asks, I haven’t seen him this happy in a while. I guess he really did miss his friends. 

“Just two days I think, like tomorrow and then we’ll leave the next night. It’s not like it’s actually that long of a drive but it’s one we don’t do often.” Andy says looking at Joe who confirms with a nod. Patrick kind of pouts. 

I look at the clock, “What do you guys want for dinner?” I ask and get a lot of shrugs. “We could try a restaurant if you want, I think there is one around the block actually that should have Andy friendly foods.” 

“Sounds good.” Andy says smiling, him being vegan would make dinner tricky for other people but I’ve got this crap figured out by now. Even if I haven’t seen him in forever it’s not something I’m about to forget. 

Everyone gets up and gets ready to go. Patrick grabs his hat, which causes Joe to poke fun of him for his thing about hats. I’ve only ever seen the one but ok. I grab my wallet, keys, and the leather jacket Patrick got me for my birthday, as I shoo them all out the door. 

“Since when do you wear anymore than a hoodie as a jacket?” Joe laughs as I pull it on. 

“Since it was a birthday gift and I happen to like it, it’s comfy.” I roll my eyes at him. 

“Awe you guys match.” He laughs. “Now that is cute.” 

“They are different styles, shut up Joe, I thought he could use an actual jacket instead of that hoodie all the time.” Patrick says and then makes a face at Joe, who responds by sticking out his tongue. Andy shakes his head at the pair of them. 

When we get to the restaurant I point at the sign in the window. “Hey Andy look.” 

“Best Vegan Tacos in Chicago.” He reads aloud. “Hey man, sounds fucking good to me.” 

We head inside and sit down in a booth. It’s a small restaurant, with a bar tucked in the corner. The waitress gives us four menus and take our drink orders. We all just get pop, deciding sober would probably be the best way to spend our time after not seeing each other for so long. Andy gets his tacos and says that they are in fact amazing. I shake my head at him as I enjoy my weird pizza. Patrick laughs as Joe throws a fry at him for him to try to catch in his mouth but it ends up hitting him in forehead. He goes back to eating the wrap he got. Joe then tries to throw one to me to catch but I know I’m gonna miss it so I put my hand up the same as I would when Brendon throws shit at me. 

“Will you quit throwing fries and eat your whatever that’s supposed to be.” I shake my head him and try to see what his food actually is. 

“It’s a burger jackass, it’s weird but it’s a burger and it’s good.” He makes a face at me so I pick up the fry he tried to throw at me and throw it at him, hitting him right in the face with it. He wrinkles his nose and goes back to his food. “So what’ve you been up to Pete?” 

“Mostly work.” I shrug. “And spending time with him.” I nudge ‘Trick with my shoulder. 

“I wanna know how you guys met.” Andy grins and Joe nods in agreement. 

“Well I take the train to work everyday but still have to walk a couple blocks.” I look at Patrick, who is trying not to laugh. “I don’t exactly understand the next bit though.” 

“I live close enough to work that I could walk, and I walk past the train station. After a few days I noticed the same weird guy got off at the same stop everyday so I’d try to get to the corner where we part ways before him, but I’d play fair and wait at the station for him. I don’t know it was entertaining to know that I was winning the race even if he didn’t know he was in it.” He laughs. 

“I’m weird? How am I weird?” I look at him. 

“You wore that same hoodie everyday and you always had headphones in and you had a weird haircut compared to everyone else that was there everyday. You stood out.” He smiles at me. 

“Says the one who wore brightly coloured and/or patterned skinny jeans everyday.” I remark and he rolls his eyes. 

“Anyway, one day I got a phone call I couldn’t avoid so I answered it thinking I had time and he almost beat me to the corner so I ran past him and that’s the first time we spoke.” He laughs. “The next day I got another call and this time he was prepared, he wore running shoes and caught me off guard. He was standing at the corner waiting for me when I finally got there, and asked for my name in exchange for having finally won.” 

“But that was the extent of that conversation, I had to get into the office because the day before John had given me an assignment, I had to go interview some musician, he didn’t have a name for the guy or any info like at all.” I shake my head. “I showed up and wait and sure enough this guy walks in and he sees me so he says hi only to discover he’s the one I’m interviewing.” 

“And neither of you knew it was the other you were supposed to go see?” Joe asks.

“No I was just told there’d be a reporter waiting for me at the cafe.” ‘Trick shrugs. 

“He was a little shit the whole time and had some major attitude, kept throwing muffin crumbs at me.” I laugh at him. “We didn’t become friends till a long while later I think.” 

Andy laughs, “Yeah that sounds like Patrick. Never liked reporters much I suppose.” 

“Kinda glad he likes you though, you guys look good together.” Joe says. “What changed the friendship though? Like what made you guys even start to see each other as more than friends.”

I look at Patrick who turns bright red. “I have game night with a couple of my friends every Saturday and after talking to Patrick and finding out he was new around here I invited him to join us. Afterwards his drunk ass fell asleep on my couch and when I tried to give him a blanket and pillow he woke up. He ended up kissing me and we both slept on the couch that night. He had a total freak out in the morning though, thought I’d be pissed off at him.” 

“Well you didn’t seem gay so how was I to know you weren’t going to get mad at me for randomly and drunkenly kissing you.” He whines slightly at being made fun of. 

“That’s kinda funny.” Joe laughs. “I can see that happening, the whole Patrick freaking out thing, not Pete getting pissed off. It takes a lot to actually piss him off.” 

“Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him as pissed as when we pointed out the mark on your face.” Andy says, watching me carefully and then relaxing when I stay calm. I try not to think about it. 

“Yeah that was kinda scary.” Joe agrees. 

“Yeah he’s been like that since it happened.” He leans into me. 

“I just hate the idea of someone hurting you and that mark just reminds me that someone did.” I furrow my brows but stay calm for Patrick’s sake. “It bothers me, you are not meant to have a mark like that on your face and I guess I’ve got a protective streak.” 

“Apparently, but I think that’s ok. Patrick is a little guy and doesn’t really have much in the way of self-defense.” Joe says, he’s the tallest of us but that’s not saying much as the rest of us are pretty short, Patrick being the smallest. Patrick sticks his tongue out at Joe. He detests being referred to as little, even if it’s true. 

“Pete isn’t that much bigger than me.” He slumps in his seat. 

“No but it’s enough, he also isn’t afraid to throw a punch and knows how. He can also take a hit a lot better than you.” Joe says and then quickly adds. “I’m not saying you’re weak or helpless or anything but the guys that would even consider hurting you are all considerably bigger than both of you.” Andy nods in agreement and Patrick looks at me. He shrugs and leans back into me. It’s good to see these guys again and it’s nice to have all four of us together for the first time, with Patrick by my side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am still very sorry about chapter 12 and 13


	15. Tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh...you know, just a night with Pete and Patrick......

Patrick stands in the kitchen while I cautiously watch from the living room. He wanted to make me one of his strange concoctions for dinner so I decided to let him. The one he’d had for lunch wasn’t bad so I figure I should be ok to let him have at it. He’s been in a good mood this week, ever since Andy and Joe visited. Though he’s actually making new friends, for some reason I cannot fathom he likes talking to Dani, I actually heard her talking to him and kind of did a double take. I rarely hear her voice and when I do it’s just barely audible. 

“Shit!” I hear Patrick exclaim from the kitchen and I look up, instantly worried. He notices and shakes his head. “It’s fine, it’s all good.”

“Did you hurt yourself?” I ask calmly. He shakes his head. “Did you hurt the food?” Again he shakes his head. “Did you hurt the kitchen?” Again no apparently. “Well then what did you do?” 

“I dropped the spatula, but I caught it before it hit the floor.” He smiles and holds it up so I can see. I nod and continue to watch him as he moves around the kitchen. I tried to help but he won’t let me in the kitchen at all. He may not be particularly big but he can be fierce when he’s determined. He hums as he cooks and dances a little, almost like he’s listening to a song in his head and I can’t help but wonder what it could be. I pick up my book off the coffee table and sit and read while he works away. I barely get through a page when I hear some of the plates from the cupboard hit the counter. 

I put the book aside and get up to go see what he’s made. Suddenly the toaster goes off and he puts two slices of toast on each plate before putting the odd mix on the toast, he doesn’t butter it or anything just squishes this weird looking crap onto the toast and makes a sandwich out of it. He cuts it in half and shoos me to the table. He sets a plate in front of me and all I can do is stare at it trying to figure out what in the hell it is. 

After about five minutes I give up. “What the fuck have you made, Lunchbox?” I poke at it with the fork he’s given me for the extra whatever-it-is that he’s put beside the sandwich. 

“I don’t really have a name for it but I’ve made this one before and it’s actually pretty good.” He says between bites of this mess. “Just try it.” 

I cautiously pick up the sandwich, and desperately try to keep the filling inside of it. I look at it for a while longer before saying fuck it and taking a big bite. I chew for a bit and kinda look at him, my food, and back. “What the fuck is this? How is it this good?” 

“It’s got rice, mildly seasoned hash browns that I cook separately before adding them, and Tostitos cheese salsa in it.” He smiles. “I don’t know why it’s good but it is.” I nod and continue eating it. Sounds weird, not bad, but weird. It’s actually amazing.

“Alright, ‘Trick, I owe you an apology, I was a little worried but this is good. I like it.” I smile at him and he laughs. We eat quietly, enjoying every bit of ‘Trick’s strange cooking. When we are done he tries to pick up my plate and I smack his hand gently. He looks up at me confused and concerned. “You cooked, I clean, go sit down.” I stand up and kiss him before grabbing the dishes.

“That’s silly, I wanted to cook for you.” He protests as I set to work cleaning up. He tries to come into the kitchen and I catch him with my palm flat on his chest. 

“Out, you made me such a good meal and I watched you work your ass off in this kitchen now go sit down and relax.” I say sternly, giving him an ‘I’m not fucking around’ look. He slumps his shoulders and goes over to the couch. He sits all curled up on himself in the corner of it with his feet almost underneath him and his knees almost under his chin. I don’t know why but he finds that comfy apparently. 

I wash all of the dishes and wipe down the counters while he silently sits and watches, still mad I wouldn’t let him help. I dry off my hands and walk over to him, sitting so close to him that if he leans toward me, even slightly, he might end up falling into my lap. He doesn’t look at me though, still pouting. I put my arm around him and pull him into my lap, I hug him close and kiss him on the cheek. 

“What are you grumpy about?” I mumble just loud enough I know he hears me. 

“You wouldn’t let me help and it’s not fair that you are stronger than me.” He continues to pout. 

“You worked hard and I was trying to show that I appreciate that and that I’ll clean up the dishes if you make me something so that you don’t get worn out or tired.” I smile at him but he doesn’t look. “And it’s not my fault you are as little as you are, I like it, I think you are cute.” 

He looks at me and furrows his brow. I kiss him and he melts against me. When I pull away he doesn’t look so grumpy. 

“Am I forgiven?” I ask kissing his face a few times till he swats at me. 

“Yeah fine, I forgive you.” He says holding my face away from him with his palm. “I guess I just wanted to do something nice for you tonight and I felt like you ruined it by not letting me do it all myself.” He let’s go of my face and I go to kiss him again but stop when he gives me the ‘don’t you fucking do it’ look. 

“Well I didn’t mean to ruin it, I’m sorry.” I smile at him and he rolls his eyes. I go to kiss his cheek again but he turns his head as I do and my lips meet his. He starts to move and I can’t figure out what he’s doing till he’s got his whole body turned to face me. He straddles my lap and kisses me harder. 

I slide my hands up his legs, gripping his hips. His delicate fingers tangle in the hair on the back of my head. I pull back to breathe and look up at him. 

“Well then,” I grin trying to catch my breathe. “Where did that come from?”

“Sorry, I just…” he pants with me. “I don’t know...I….you were being…..and I….I couldn’t take it anymore, I needed to kiss you properly.” He turns a pretty pink colour. 

He looks like he’s going to try and move so I hook my hands together behind his back, giving him no room to move. He look backwards at my hands and back at me. His sweet face changes slightly, he smiles and I can see his intent in his eyes. He kisses me again, rolling his hips as he does so. It’s enough to make me growl into the kiss. Evil little shit. His hands go from my hair to the hem of my shirt in no time. He tugs it up and over my head, exposing my chest and tattoos. He traces a finger along the ring of thorns the same as he did that morning after the first time he kissed me. It feels different now though, not as timid or curious, now the touch sends sparks into my core, making my skin tingle and heat up in the wake of it. 

I kiss him again, forcing my tongue past his lips and making him whine quietly as I run my hands up from his hips, pushing the hem of his shirt up a little. I pull his shirt off of him and toss it aside. I pause at the frown on his face. 

“What’s wrong baby?” I say but he looks down at himself and it hits me. I wrap my arms around him and pull him towards me. I kiss from his jaw to the base of his neck, and let my teeth graze the smooth, soft skin. He shivers in my arms at the sensation. I look at his face again and he still seems uncomfortable. I examine him, trying to see what it could be he doesn’t want me to. What could be bothering him. He’s really pale but I kind of figured that much would be true. It’s can’t be that. I notice some faint stretch marks along his waist and look back up at him. His face has fallen dramatically, he knows I’ve figured it out. “What? These?” I run my fingers over the marks. 

He nods, just sitting there now with his hands on my shoulders. I sigh and hold out my arms. “Take a look ‘Trick.” He does and runs a hand over several scars from me being a stupid klutz as a kid. “I’m not without scars and marks, no one is. I have some of those too, from a growth spurt when I was young.” I kiss him gently, and when I pull away he is almost smiling again. “I love you exactly as you are, no matter what, and I think you are beautiful.” He smiles and leans into me. He kisses at my neck and nuzzles his face in. I grab hold of the back of his thighs. “Hold on to me.” I whisper and he wraps his arms around my neck. 

I very carefully stand up, bringing him with me. He laughs as I carry him into my bedroom. I realize he’s never been in here as I set him down on the bed and he looks around for a second. Unlike the rest of the apartment my bedroom is not neat and tidy. Books are left in piles on all surfaces. My bed is never made. A pile of laundry sits in the corner. He refocuses on my and hooks his finger through a belt loop on my jeans pulling me towards him. My knees hit the edge of the bed and I fall forwards. He throws his hands up to keep me from landing on his as I throw mine out to catch myself. 

“Well that was silly.” I laugh and kiss him. I bring my knees up to support myself, planting them on either side of his hips. I feel his hands pull at my back, his nails digging in slightly. I leave a trail of kisses down his neck and chest. I look up at him and he smiles, his eyes wide, his face beautiful as ever, and his usually neat red-blonde hair a bit of a mess. I pull at his belt and unbuckle it. I ignore the that my jeans are way too tight in the front and work his off of him. He catches me off guard and reach his hand between us, placing it over my crotch and pushing at it gently. I groan involuntarily and kiss him again to silence myself. He doesn’t give me break though so I grab his hands and pin them on either side of his head. 

“Listen here you little shit.” I grin and he laughs. I kiss him and let go of his hands, they are immediately back on me but this time just trying to get my belt undone. I let him get my jeans off and toss them with his, but when he reaches down again I move out of his reach. I get him to shift up on the bed so I can kneel between his legs, my hands resting on his thighs for a minute. I move my hands up to his hips, trailing my fingers over his skin and watching him squirm a little as I do. 

“Pete.” he says, my name sounding like a dirty word rolling off his tongue. I pull his boxers down carefully and throw them on the floor. I wrap my hand around his length and he moans quietly. I take him in my mouth and he moans again. I smile and run my tongue up the underside, looking up at him and watching him as his head tilts back a bit. I run my tongue along the slit, teasing him, and he fists his hands into the blankets. I take him in my mouth again, all of him, and bob my head up and down a little to see how he takes it. He whines and arches his back, the sound is music to my ears. I hum happily, sending shivers into his body, he reacts instantly. His voice crying out quietly, and eyes closing. I keep going, gently sucking him off, making sure to mind my teeth. His breathes become increasingly heavy, panting and whining and moaning. 

He makes an entirely new noise, I can feel the tension coil tight in him. “Oh god, Pete!” He cries. He cums hard, hitting the back of my throat. When he’s done I swallow and sit up to watch him as he relaxes, he lays there with his eyes closed. His breath becomes more even after a minute or two. He opens his eyes and sits up. He smiles and is instantly kissing me again. “God that was good.” He smiles, reaching his hand between us and drawing attention back to my throbbing member. He runs his hands over it through the material of my boxers, kissing me while he’s at it. He manages to get my boxers off me without breaking the kiss. He lazily jacks me off and kisses me intensely but it’s enough. I feel the tension coil deep in my abdomen and I’m a moaning mess in his hands. I thrust my hips up a couple times to meet his strokes and kiss him harder as I cum. Making a bit of a mess of his hands and our legs. 

We sit there for a couple minutes, not moving, just leaning into one another and slowing our breathing down a bit. I open my eyes and lean back a bit to look at him. I kiss his forehead and he looks up at me, smiling and sleepy looking. I get up and go get a wet cloth. I clean us both up and he curls up on his side, head nestled into my pillow. 

I crawl around him and wrap an arm around him, hugging him to my chest and pulling the blankets over us. “I love you ‘Trick.” I hum as I get comfy. 

“I love you too Pete.” he rolls over and snuggles into me, and closes his eyes. This man has got to be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I rest my chin on top of his head and close my eyes. I feel his breath against my neck. I feel the rise and fall of his chest and shoulders. It’s calming and I eventually drift off too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok now before y'all start judging me let me tell you something...the weird recipe that Patrick makes IS ACTUALLY A THING! but let me explain, my little brother came up with it by chance. I was having one of my bad days and he wanted to make me lunch to cheer me up. Mama has always made weird stuff in the kitchen and it's usually pretty good so the concept was nothing new to us. He knew all my favourite kinds of foods and decided to say fuck it and threw it all together. I was skeptical at first too but it is actually SOOOOOOO good you have no idea. We've made larger batches and taken it to school pot lucks and stuff, and I make it at home for friends, at first people aren't too sure but I so far have not found a single person who doesn't like it once they try it. I promise you it's really good so if you try it it'll be fine. We season the hashbrowns very simply so it doesn't interfere with the other flavours, usually salt, pepper (he doesn't know I add that though he hates pepper), garlic powder, and parsley.


	16. Music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brendon freaks Patrick out and Pete spends the day with Patrick....

I wake up to sunlight heating my back and Patrick’s small, warm form snuggled up against me. I smile and hold him tight. There’s a knock on the door and I roll my eyes before getting out of bed, making sure not to wake ‘Trick, and throw on a pair of pajama pants. I stretch as I pad out to the front door. I open it and Brendon looks me up and down. 

“Well someone looks like they slept good.” He laughs, stepping inside as I move out of the way. 

“Dude it’s way too early for you, what are you doing here?” I grumble at him, my voice sounds like shit. 

“First of all it noon, wake the fuck up sleepy head, and second I brought lunch.” He says flopping onto the couch. 

“It’s Saturday so fuck you I’ll sleep in if I want.” I roll my eyes. He hands me a take out bag from a coffee shop. 

“Where’d you go Pete?” I hear Patrick before I see him and Brendon’s eyes go wide at the sound of his voice. 

“I’m in the living room, Brendon is here.” I say as he rounds the corner wearing my Metallica shirt and his boxers.

“Oh, hey Brendon.” He says blushing.

“Hey there Patrick, sorry I didn’t know you’d be here or I’d have brought you something to eat too.” Brendon looks between us. 

“It’s fine.” He says quietly sitting beside me. I open my food and see it a chicken salad sandwich. It’s already cut in half so I take one half and hand the other to Patrick. “Thanks.” He mumbles and takes it. He looks sleepy still. 

“So Patrick sleeps over now?” Brendon laughs as he opens up his lunch. 

“This is new.” I say, I look at Patrick again. He looks like he could go back to sleep. “Apparently he is not a morning person.” He smiles faintly and goes back to eating his sandwich. 

“Huh, well alright then.” Brendon grins in a way that looks mildly demonic but that’s just Brendon. Patrick unfortunately isn’t familiar with this and looks up from his sandwich.

“What the…” he says dropping his food and wedging himself between me and the back of my seat. Good thing I was sitting forward I think as I look under my arm at him. 

“It’s ok ‘Trick, he makes stupid faces a lot, sometimes they are scary but he’s harmless. You’d think that you would know that by now.” I laugh gently as he clings to my back. “Can you get out of there please?” I ask. 

He climbs out from behind me and back into his own chair. Thank god we weren’t using the dining room chairs at least. He picks up what’s left of his lunch, which somehow survived all of that without hitting the floor. 

“Brendon obviously it’s too early for him to be able to process you and all your weirdness.” I laugh. Brendon smiles, less demonic this time, and nods.

“Yeah maybe, I’ll see you guys for game night tonight though.” He gets up and heads over to the door. He turns back and winks at me before leaving. 

“You okay Patrick?” I turn to as he brushes some crumbs from his sandwich off the shirt he’s wearing. “And how’d you end up with that shirt, by the way?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine and I just grab a shirt from the floor, I didn’t know where you’d went and I wanted to find you.” He says turning towards me. 

“Sorry if I frightened you by disappearing but I heard a knock on the door.” I reach out my hand to place it along his jaw. He smiles and leans into it as I trace circles with my thumb. “I didn’t go far.” 

He smiles and gets up to move to the couch, he pats the seat beside him. I sit beside him and wrap an arm around his shoulders. He leans into me and sighs. 

“The shirt looks cute on you by the way.” I snicker quietly. He looks up at me with a gentle smile. “What do you want to do today?” 

“I don’t know, I kind of just want to cuddle right now.” He says, snuggling further into my side. I nod and pull him close. 

“That’s fine with me.” I kiss the top of his head and wrap both my arms tight around him. 

~~~~~

I stretch as I wake up but my foot gets stuck in the blankets. I look down and see I’m twisted up in them. I kick at it till my foot is free and swing my feet over the side of the bed. My head hurts a little as I stand up, an echo of last nights fun. I pull on a pair of pajama pants and pad out to the kitchen. My phone rings and I run back to the bedroom to grab it. 

“Hello?” I ask as I answer it, not having even looked at the caller ID. 

“Hey babe, did you just wake up?” ‘Trick’s voice answers. 

“Yeah, I guess I slept in.” I look at the clock and see that it’s two in the afternoon already. 

“You slept later than me.” He laughs. “What are you doing today?” 

“Nothing that I know of, why?” I go back out to the kitchen to grab a juice from the fridge. 

“You should come over, I’m going to the studio today to work on something before I forget it, and I wondered if you’d come with me.” He says and I realize that I’ve never actually been over to his place.

“Yeah, sure just let me get dressed and I’ll come over.” I say. 

“Ok, I’ll text you my address.” I hear the smile in his voice. “Love you.” 

“I love you too ‘Trick.” I smile. He hangs up and I set my phone down to go get dressed. When I come back I check my phone to find that he texted me. I grab my stuff and head out the door.

~~~~~

I step off the train and head away from work rather than towards it. Walking down the street I check the address on my phone again. He really doesn’t live far I don’t think so I pay attention to street signs till I find the right one. I knock on the door when I think I’ve got the right one. An older woman answers and gives me a funny look. 

“Can I help you young man?” She says in a gruff voice, a scowl clear on her face.

“I...uh...hold on a second.” I look at my phone again. Shit. “Sorry wrong address, I’m sorry I bothered you ma’am.” I back away and walk down the street a little more. I double check the number this time before I ring the doorbell. Patrick opens the door and I sigh with relief. 

“Come on in, you look a little scared.” He smiles and lets me in. 

“I misread the number the first time and knocked on some old lady’s door. She didn’t seem happy to see me at all.” I shudder. 

“The one on the corner at the other end?” He asks. He laughs when I nod. “That’s my landlady, she doesn’t like many people and you do kind of look like a lot of the kids she has to yell at all the time for making noise outside at ridiculous times in the morning.” 

“Oh,” I say as I look around his apartment. It’s neat and tidy besides the instruments everywhere. It’s simple but comfy looking, mostly light colours to contrast my darker apartment. 

He notices me looking. “This place used to look a lot more like your apartment till she took over, she had the paint redone and the places all cleaned up and renovated. The neighborhood was a little dingy till she bought it and fixed it up. She came around about a week after I got here, she sent all the other tenants packing but let me stay when I promised not to be a problem. The others were kind of sketchy, one guy had like 28 birds when he moved out.” He shrugs. 

“Huh, it’s nice.” I think about my neighbors and shudder again. “You definitely got lucky.” He pulls on his jacket. “So why are you working on a weekend?” 

“Because I’ve been struggling with this song and I think I finally have it figured out.” He smiles and grabs my hand, dragging me back outside. He locks the door and we head over to the studio. We pass his landlady, now sitting on her front step, and she smiles at us and seemingly nods in approval. When we finally get to the studio we go to the room I found him in last time I was here. His manager, Jason, is waiting there with some girl and the older gentleman I talked to when I was here before, the boss or whatever you want to call him. 

“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced, though understandably, I’m Richard, I keep an eye on thing around here and make sure they go smoothly.” He shakes my hand. “And as long as you don’t hit any more of the people who work here we’ll get along just fine.” 

“Pete, and as long as they don’t pose a threat to Patrick I don’t think we’ll have that problem.” I force a smile. He releases my hand and leaves the room. 

“I’m Jason, we haven’t officially met but I was around that day too.” He nods curtly. “This is Maria, the new soundboard operator for Patrick.” She waves but doesn’t come near me, she must have heard what happened to the last soundboard person I crossed paths with. 

“Pleased to meet you.” I smile pleasantly, she relaxes but still keeps her distance. “So Patrick what is this song you’re working on, you never did tell me.” 

“Oh...uh…” he blushes and pulls out his notebook. “It’s actually the song I’d planned to work on the day Steven was reassigned.” He hands it to me open to a page with little scribbles along the edges and a lot of writing on it. I look at it for a minute, it looks good but I can’t gather a meaning from it at first glance. I look a little harder, trying to see what Patrick would try to convey with it and a line jumps out at me. 

“‘And I feel lost in those golden eyes, his arms around me hold me tight’.....” I say it outloud and Patrick smiles sheepishly. “You once told me my eyes look gold in some light, I can promise you they are brown, but is this….?” I trail off but he nods anyways, seeing what I was trying to ask. 

“Your eyes turn colours depending on the light, right now they are brown cause there isn’t much light in here.” He looks at his feet. “When light hits them the right way they turn a whiskey colour, but sunlight makes them go full on gold.” I laugh and smile down at the notebook. I read it more carefully and see more meaning in the song, knowing it’s how he sees me. How he feels about me. 

“I like it, so what have you been struggling with?” I ask remembering he’d said he was having issues but figured it out. 

Before he can answer Richard comes back into the room. “I found that bass you asked for this morning Patrick. Hope it helps.” He holds a worn looking bass in his hands. Patrick takes it from him. 

“Thanks.” He says and Richard leaves again. He turns to me. “I’ve been trying to get it to sound more rock than my usual stuff because I know that’s your favourite kind of music, that’s most of what you listen to, but it’s been missing something.” He sets the bass aside and pulls out a loose piece of paper from his jacket pocket and hands it to me. “I can play a lot of instruments and while I can play bass it hasn’t been sounding the way I want it to.” 

I look at the paper and see it’s chords for the song. I look back up at him and he’s holding the bass out to me. “No, Patrick, I’m not good at it and I couldn’t, this is your song, I’m sure it sounds fine the way you’ve been playing it.” I hold the paper back out to him. 

“I’ve heard it and I’d have to agree with Patrick, it’s a little off, it’s good but off.” Jason says from his corner by Maria. “Give it a try and let the people in the music business be the judge of your ability.” 

“I’m a reporter not a musician, this is...no way.” I protest. 

“Pete, please just try it.” Patrick holds the bass out again. “I promise if you want this is the only time I’ll ask you to do this, but I want this song to sound right and I think you can help with that. I’ve heard you play remember, you played one of my songs for me.” 

I look back at the chords, then at Patrick again. I sigh and take the bass from him. He smiles and shoos me into the booth. He gets me set up with these silly looking headphones and put the chords out where I can see them. Then he heads back out to where everyone else is and closes the door. I look at the music and start to play what he’s written. We go through it a couple times and I begin to hear his problem, there’s a wonky note. I tell them I’m going to go through it again and this time I change that note. When I look back up Patrick’s eyes are as wide as the smile on his face. I fixed it and he’s not going to let me live this down. He signals for me to do it again so I do and then he comes in to get me. 

When we are back in the other room I set down the bass. “Patrick, this is a one time thing, I am never doing that again. I’ll leave the music to you.” I sigh. 

“Shut up and listen you big goof.” He says and hits play on the recording. It sounds good but I already knew it was ok. I shrug and then he hits replay but hits another button to play it back underneath something else. The rest of the song. While I was just listening to myself play they were listening to this. “You fixed it, what made you change it? I know you changed something.” 

“There was a wonky sounding note that didn’t fit so I changed it and meshed it in.” I shrug. “It made that section sound chunky and off, I figured that was the problem you had been having.” 

“It was actually, but for someone who supposedly isn’t a musician you managed to fix it when I couldn’t.” He grins at me and I roll my eyes. 

“I’m not but I’m not deaf either, and bass is like the one instrument I play.” I shrug at him. “But like I said it’s a one time deal, I won’t do that again, I hate my playing and I’ve told you that.” 

He nods, “Ok but I like it and thank you for helping me.” He throws his arms around my neck and hugs me tight. I hug him back and hear Maria and Jason giggle amongst themselves. I instinctively flip them off and they break into all out laughter. Patrick jumps and looks between them and me with a ‘what the fuck’ written all over his face. 

I shake my head and kiss his cheek, “Ignore those clowns, they’re just being silly.” He smiles.


	17. I Don't Care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick asks Pete something important...
> 
> It's called I Don't Care for both the content of the chapter and the fact that that song was stuck in my head while I was writing it.

I check my mailbox before going into my apartment. I hear the neighbors arguing again. Nothing new, but something is off tonight. I turn my attention from the envelopes in my hand to the people out in the street. That’s when I notice the police cars, lights flashing. I’m surprised I didn’t notice before. There’s are paramedics loading someone into their ambulance and a woman yelling at the officer talking to her. I go inside before I witness any more of whatever is going on. I don’t want to know. 

~~~~~

I sit down at my desk and boot up my computer as Brendon comes rushing in and hugs me so tightly I feel kind of squished. 

“What is the matter with you?” I shrug him off and see the trauma on his face. He holds out this morning’s paper to me. I take it and read it. The headlining article is about whatever happened last night with my neighbors. “What of it?” I don’t actually read it, I still don’t want to know. 

“Pete, I was so worried, I read it and I was scared.” He looks at me with wide eyes. “It says that a couple got into a fight and one of the neighbors tried to break it up. ‘The twenty-nine year old, whose name we will not disclose at this time, was reported to have been shot last night outside his home while attempting to break up a fight. Neighbors called the police upon hearing the gunfire. He was pronounced dead at the seen and a thirty-seven year old male is in custody.’” He reads. “Can you see why I might be worried when I hear a man your age has been shot and killed on your street when I talked to you since Saturday?” 

“Yeah, ok I guess I can understand, but Brendon, I’m sitting right here in front you. Completely unharmed and obviously not dead.” I say calmly. “So will you relax please?” He slumps his shoulders and goes over to his chair. “The police were there when I got home from hanging out with Patrick but I didn’t want to know so I just went inside.” 

My phone goes off before either of us can say anything else. “Hello?” I ask. 

“Oh my god! Pete!” Patrick almost yells. “I was so worried, sorry I wasn’t there to walk to work with you, I slept in but then I saw the newspaper. You’re ok right?” 

I sigh, him too apparently. “Yeah, obviously I’m fine ‘Trick, I answered my phone didn’t I?” 

“Okay fair enough but when you get off work we need to talk.” He says, sounding a little rushed. “I gotta go, we are finishing up that song and I’m already late. Love you.” 

“Love you too, I’ll see you after work.” I say and hang up. “Apparently you’re not the only one who saw the article and freaked out.” I say to Brendon who shakes his head in amusement.

“Oh thank christ!” I hear John’s voice just behind me. I turn around and look at him. 

“Yes John, I’m here, I’m still alive, will everyone please calm down?” I sigh and hang my head, this is gonna get old fast, I’m glad they care but seriously. I turn back to my computer and try to focus on my work. 

~~~~~

I walk out of the office at the end of the day to find Patrick waiting for me. He throws his arms around my neck, totally throwing caution to the wind. 

“Hey, I’m fine.” I hug him back. He grabs my hand and we start off down the street. 

“You want to come to my place tonight?” He asks just loud enough for me to hear him. 

“Yeah, sounds good to me.” I smile at him but he doesn’t seem as happy about it. “Are you okay?” 

“No, I was so worried this morning, I thought I’d lost you already.” He doesn’t look at me as he speaks, his voice sounds tight. “I thought I should have made sure you got home safe last night, I should have texted you or something, and then because I was late this morning I didn’t see you so when I saw that article in the paper…” he pauses. “I don’t ever want to go through that again.” 

“Hey, look at me.” I stop and pull him out of the way of foot traffic. He looks up at me, tears almost spilling over. “I’m right here, I’m alive, I’m fine. I know it scared you but I’m ok, nothing happened to me.” 

“But it could have been you, and I wouldn’t have known till I called your cell and got no answer or something.” He says, his voice cracking a little. 

“No, John would have made sure you knew, I gave him your cell number after he asked me for it after he found out we are together, he would have come to your house and he would have told you and hugged you till you were ok again.” I grab hold of his shoulders. “John wouldn’t let you find out like that, he’d make sure it was him that told you. That’s the way he is.” I pull him in and hug him tight. “But it doesn’t matter because I’m not going anywhere. Now let’s get you home.” 

He nods and takes my hand again. We walk down his street and his landlady is sitting outside again. She smiles at me and waves. I wave back, a little confused, but I won’t be rude.

“Hey Lunchbox, I thought she didn’t like me.” I say as we walk inside his apartment. 

“She didn’t know who you were till she saw us walking to the studio holding hands. I asked her about it.” He smiles faintly. “She thought you were some troublemaker at first but then she realized you were ‘that Pete guy’ I’d told her about. She said she’s happy to see me with someone.” 

“I see, well that’s alright I guess.” I kick off my shoes. “You said we needed to talk after work, did you get it all out?” 

“No, absolutely not.” He sits down on his couch, and pats the seat beside him. “I have one more thing I wanted to say.” 

“Ok,” I sit down beside him. “I’m all ears then, you have my undivided attention.” I put my arm around his shoulders. 

“Now, I thought of it briefly last night but after seeing that article this morning I spent all day thinking about it.” He says turning slightly to be able to face me. “What would you say if I asked you to move in here with me?” 

“I…...Patrick, my apartment is fine with me, this is your space.” I sit back and look at him. 

“Pete, I have plenty of room for you to move in.” he waves his hand at the living room to emphasize his point. “I know there is nothing wrong with your apartment,” he pauses and thinks. “Apart from where it is of course.” 

“It’s fine Patrick, look I know you are worried babe but it’s really fine. Last night was an anomaly not the norm.” I sigh and look at him. 

“I don’t care, I’d rather have you here where I know you are safe. And think about it, here you are closer to work.” He looks at me with a pout on his face. “I mean I understand if you don’t want to, I’m a neat freak and I make weird food, but at least promise me you’ll think about it.” 

I study him for a minute and nod, “Ok, I’ll think about it.” I kiss the top of his head. “And by the way, I don’t mind tidy and I like your weird food so far. None of that matters though, I love you and I’ll think about it. Moving in together is kind of a big step, that’s all.” 

“I know but still.” He cuddles into me. “Want me to cook tonight?” He asks.

“Absolutely.” I hug him and cuddle up with him, he giggles and tries to curl as far into my side as he can.


	18. Adjusting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brendon smacks Pete upside the head for being a fucking jackass and he deserves it.....

“Hey man, we gonna head out and work on that story today?” Brendon leans over my shoulder and asks. 

“Yeah, grab your camera.” I sling my backpack over my shoulder and grab my notebook. He hangs his camera around his neck as we walk out of the office. 

“You seems spacey today, anything bugging you?” He says as we jump on the train. 

“I...Patrick asked me to move in with him last night.” I sigh and lean back in my seat. 

“And that’s a problem?” He arches an eyebrow at me, frowning with a confused look on his face.

“No, I guess not, I’m just not sure what to do.” I say rolling my eyes. “Moving in with your significant other is supposed to be a big thing.” 

“I never understood that, you pretty much live together as it is.” He laughs. “When you’re not at work you’re with him, either at your place or his, so it’s not like it’d be that huge of a leap.” He stands up as the train pulls up to our stop and I follow him off the train. 

“Ok you may have a point there.” I slump my shoulders a bit. Maybe I’m just totally overthinking it.

“Listen Pete, let me ask you something.” He stops and turns around to block my path, almost causing me to run into him. “Do you love him?” 

“Yes,” I answer without hesitating and he just looks at me as if I’m missing the point. 

“You answered that without even the slightest pause of uncertainty. You love him, and if you foresee that persisting for a long time then I see no issue here apart from you being an ass and making him feel like you are afraid of this.” He slaps me up the side of the head. “Get your shit together and figure it out and quit making him wait, you’re gonna stress the poor guy out.” 

I shake my head at him as we walk into the park we are supposed to be at today. He’s right, I know he is. 

~~~~~

I hurry out of the office after work to meet Patrick. He standing there looking a little down. I run at him and pick him up. He squawks at me to put him the hell down as I laugh. 

“Pete, you evil son of a bitch, what was that for?” He glares at me as I lean in and kiss him. 

“Yes.” is all I say and the look that crosses his face is comical. I bend down and pick up his hat putting it back on his head where it belongs. 

“What?” He fixes the hat and looks at me incredulously. 

“Yes, I’ll move in with you.” I say, “I was overthinking it and it took Brendon slapping me upside the head for me to see that. Yes I want to live with you.” I say with absolute certainty and watch as joy floods his face. He throws himself at me and hugs me tight. 

“Pete, this..” He can’t seem to find the words. He struggles for a minute before managing to say “I love you.” Before kissing me with every ounce of strength he can manage. 

I kiss him back until I feel something hit the back of my head. “Hey, now come on you two, get a room.” John’s voice rings out clear from behind me. “Want a ride home?” I turn around to see him holding his car door open. I look to Patrick who shrugs. We climb into the backseat of John’s car. 

~~~~~

I stuff the last of my clothes into the clear trash bag. I look around my bedroom at the furniture I have to leave behind and the two trash bags of clothes sitting on the floor. Brendon comes into the room carrying a box. 

“Ok man the last of the donate boxes have been loaded into John’s car. He’s going to take them and drop them, then he’ll come back and we can load up your stuff to be taken over to Patrick’s place.” He says, shifting the weight of the box in his arms. “This is the last box I have to put by the door, you got everything in here?” 

“Yeah that’s the last of the clothes, everything else is already out there.” I say picking up the bags. “I didn’t think I had a lot of clothes but apparently I do.” I toss the bags by the pile of boxes and my bass and stuff. “I sold the TV last week but Patrick doesn’t have any game systems so we are keeping the Wii, the Playstation is garbage but the Wii is still good.” 

“Yeah, makes sense.” He set the box he was carrying down. “Oh hey Patrick.” He waves at him. 

“Hey Brendon, how’s it going in here?” He looks at the pile and then looks around the rest of the place. “Got everything?” 

“Yeah, I’m gonna look around one more time to make sure.” I say and turn to do exactly that. I look in all the cupboards in the kitchen, the dishes having been donated. I look in the fridge to make sure we’d sent all the food to Patrick’s place already to keep it from going bad. I move through the living room, all the books and stuff packed up in boxes, the furniture staying where it is. I walk down the tiny hallway and peek my head into the bathroom. Shit, my hair straightener is still on the counter from this morning, I couldn’t pack it because it had been cooling down. I grab it and wrap up the cord. I walk into the bedroom and look around thoroughly, checking under the bed and other furniture, in the closet. Everything is packed up. I wander back out to the front door. John is back now, and standing there picking up the first box.

“Let’s get this shit loaded up and I’ll meet you guys there.” He grins. We can’t fit in the car with John and my stuff so we have to take the train. We each pick up a box and start loading up John’s car. 

~~~~~

“That’s the last of it.” Brendon says as he sets the last box in Patrick’s living room. “We’ll leave you two to figure this crap out.” 

“Thanks for helping out you guys.” I say as they head out the door leaving me and Patrick with a pile of boxes. Patrick opens one of them and pulls it over to his half empty bookshelf. He sits on the floor, his feet tucked under him and starts putting them on the shelves. I grab one of the other boxes, smiling at him as he looks through the books I own. Sometimes he’ll nod at a book before putting it with the others, he’s probably read those ones. 

I open the box I grabbed and pull out the Wii and start hooking it up to his TV. Then I pull out the few games I own and tuck them beside the system. The Guitar Hero guitars get tucked between the wall and the TV stand. Patrick puts the last book on the shelf and tosses the box aside in favour of grabbing my bass and all of it’s gear. He tucks it in a corner of the room amongst his guitars and whatsnot. It looks like it belongs there. 

We unpack every box, finding places for everything or making room when we can’t find a spot. Once we’ve flattened the last box he grabs one bag of clothes and my other crap and hauls me toward the bedroom and bathroom down the hall. He hands me my straightener and crap and I get it all put away in the bathroom while he grabs the other bag of clothes. I step into his bedroom and he pulls the bags of clothes in front of a dresser that doesn’t match the rest of the furniture in the room. Everything else is a light wood grain but this dresser is painted black and looks old and beat up. I smile and open on of the bags. I go to stuff my hoodies into one drawer but Patrick slaps my hand. 

“Those go in your half of the closet.” He points to the sliding door beside me. I open it and find the almost half of it is empty apart from empty hangers. I start hanging up hoodies and look back to see him shaking his head at a pile of black skinny jeans. He shoves them into a drawer and moves onto the next pile. I hang up my one suit and close the door again. I dump all my socks and boxers into a drawer and toss the bag aside as he stuffs my dress shoes under the edge of the bed. He picks up my pillow and blankets I brought with me, looking at them for a second. He tosses the pillow up by the headboard but takes the blankets and sheets out to the linen cupboard. He gathers up the empty bags and wanders out to the kitchen. I follow him silently and watch as he tosses them in the garbage. “Pizza?” He asks grinning as he looks at the time. It’s about dinner time. 

“Hell yes.” I smile back. I pull out my Sidekick while he calls to order it and check missed texts. Brendon, Joe, and Andy. 

I check Brendon’s first. “Guess game night is at my place from now on ;)” I shake my head and type back. “Yeah sounds about right to me.” 

Then I check Joe’s text. He sent three. “Hey man.” “Dude?” “Pete, man fucking answer me. What could u be doing?” I laugh at that one, he must want to talk about something. “Hey man sorry was a little busy moving.” 

Lastly I check Andy’s message. “Dude i don’t know what ur up to but answer Joe before he has an aneurysm.” I roll my eyes, of course Joe would be worked up about it enough for Andy to message me. “Sorry, just did.” 

“Pizza is on it’s way.” Patrick says hanging up his phone. “Who are you texting?” 

“Brendon, Joe and Andy. I think Joe wants to talk about something because he texted me three times and even got Andy to text me.” I laugh as it goes off again. Andy saying thank christ. I set it aside and ignore it when it immediately goes off again. Patrick laughs and walks out to the living room shaking his head. 

“Well you better see what the hell he wants then, he doesn’t usually get worked up about stuff.” He flops onto the couch and looks around. “I’m glad we got all that done quickly.” I sit down beside him. I look at my Sidekick and decide to answer it. 

It’s Joe again, “Dude finally, we are coming back up to see u guys tomorrow. Will be at ur place around noon. Where’d u move to?” 

“Patrick’s place.” I text back. I look to Patrick who’s flipping through channels on the TV, trying to find something to watch apparently. “Apparently Joe and Andy are coming to visit tomorrow. That’s what Joe was trying to get ahold of me for.” 

“Oh, really?” He turns toward me.

“Yeah, I think Joe’s birthday is coming up.” I smile. “He usually comes here around then to hang out.” My phone goes off again. I check it and it’s Joe again but this time it’s a phone call. I answer and put it on speaker. 

“Did I just read that right?” Joe says, his voice a little uncertain. 

“Read what right?” Patrick asks, looking from me to the phone. 

“Pete moved in with you!” He answers and Patrick starts laughing. “When the hell?” 

“We like just finished unpacking everything.” I shake my head at Patrick who is laughing so hard he’s almost crying.

“Wow!” Joe says, “I wasn’t sure I’d read that right, that’s awesome though. So we’ll show up at Patrick’s, not your old place.” 

“Alright, see you then.” Patrick pipes up, finally having managed to stop laughing. “Bye Joe.” 

“Bye Patrick, bye Pete.” Joe says before I hear the click of him hanging up. I end the call and set my phone aside. There is a knock on the door and Patrick gets up to answer it. I don’t see who it is or hear the conversation but it’s not hard to guess when Patrick comes back carrying a pizza box. 

“Pizza anybody?” He grins and sets it on the coffee table. I smile and sit forward to check it out.


	19. Waves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete is cheesy as fuck....just another night with just them

“Pete, where are we going?” Patrick half whines as we climb into the cab. I pass a piece of paper and the money for the ride to the cab driver. I set my backpack on the seat beside me. 

“You’ll see when we get there.” I put an arm around his shoulders. “It’s a surprise, ‘Trick.” 

He pouts while the car pulls away from the curb. It’s only a fifteen minute drive but Patrick keeps his arms folded over his chest the whole time and doesn’t say a word. When we pull up to the curb by the beach Patrick looks at me, his eyebrows furrowed together. It’s a little after 8 o’clock at night and the beach is quiet. I shoo him out of the cab and grab my bag. I wave to the driver who pulls away and leaves us standing alone with the sound of gentle waves to greet us. 

“What are we doing here?” He asks but I ignore him for now. I kick off my shoes and roll up the bottoms of my skinny jeans as much as I can without them being too tight. I walk out into the sand a ways and stop about halfway between the water and the curb. 

I look back at Patrick, he’s taking off his shoes and rolling up his pants. The look on his pretty face tells me he’s now completely determined to figure out what I’m up to. That’s fine with me. “This is silly, Pete, I hope you know that.” He says as he picks up his shoes and wanders over to me. I take his hand in mine and walk down the beach a bit. 

Patrick squawks in surprise when I stop suddenly and gently set down my backpack. He loses his balance and falls on his ass in the sand. I can’t help but laugh as he looks up at me with a look of mild disgust. He stands back up and brushes off the sand. “Seriously, Peter, what are we doing here?” 

“Don’t call me that, and hold on, you’ll see.” I say as I crouch down to open my bag. I pull out the huge blanket I brought and spread it out while he watches me. I ignore his curious gaze and pull out the tupperware containers and the bottles of juice I brought with us. 

“A picnic on the beach at night.” He sighs shaking his head. “Could you get any cheesier?” I reach up and grab his hand. I give a gentle pull and he falls down again. He sits up and turns to glare at me. 

“Probably but I figured this was probably cheesy enough.” I smile and open up one of the containers and hand it to him with a fork. I made chicken caesar salad, to keep it simple. He looks between his food and me as I open the container holding mine. I take a couple bites before I realize he’s still not eating and is just watching me. “What?” I ask, setting my food down, and looking over at him. 

He shakes his head and starts eating his salad. I just watch him for a minute, trying to figure out what he’s thinking. I pick my container back up and eat the contents while quietly watching the waves gently lap at the shore. It’s soothing and calm out here at night. The moon is full and bright hanging out over the lake tonight. I can’t spot any of the stars but I know they are there. I set aside the now empty container and crack open my bottle of juice, I notice ‘Trick is done eating and is watching me again. 

“Yes?” I ask, smiling as I take a sip of the juice. “Do you see something you like?” He cracks a smile at that. 

“Of course I do, I’m looking at you.” He says keeping his voice gentle, trying to hide the laugh just beneath the surface. 

“You know,” I set my drink down and look at him. “A picture would undoubtedly last longer.” 

“I’m just still trying to figure out why we came out here, we could just have easily eaten salad at the apartment.” He says as I pack up our empty containers. 

“True, but it’s nice out here, it’s calm and quiet and the moon is pretty tonight.” I move over to sit right beside him. “I thought you’d like it out here, I love being here at night and I thought I’d share that with you.” 

Patrick no longer contains the laugh. “It is pretty, I’ll give you that, and it is really quiet and peaceful right now. Why do you like being here at night so much?” 

“Because you can listen to the water swaying back and forth against the shore, it’s relaxing. And there aren’t usually people here at night. I like the calm and quiet and looking at the night sky.” I lay back on the blanket, shoving my backpack off the blanket behind me. Patrick looks at me for a second before he nods and lays beside me. I reach and grab his hand to hold in mine, rubbing small circles on the back of his hand with my thumb. He shifts towards me. 

“You are different,” he says softly. “And incredibly cheesy, but I like it.” He let’s go of my hand and rolls onto his side to cuddle up against me, his small frame fitting perfectly like it was meant to be there. I wrap my arms around him and pull him tight to me. I remove his hat, carefully setting it on my backpack, and rest my chin on top of his head and listen to his breathing as it comes and goes in time with the waves, both serving to calm me, making me feel at home and comfortable. 

“Get used to it.” I mumble into his messy strawberry blonde hair. His body shakes with a quiet giggle and he nuzzles into my chest gripping the fabric of my shirt in his hands. We just lay there like that for a while. Just breathing, cuddling, and listening. The faint breeze feels nice brushing against my bare arms but Patrick shivers a little. “You ok there Lunchbox?” I ask. 

“Little cold, you are really warm but I’m still a little cold. I don’t know why you thought the beach in September was a good idea.” He says giggling quietly. 

“Well let’s go home then.” I say letting go so he can move. I give him his hat and start packing stuff up. He shakes off the blanket and I help him fold it up so it will fit in my backpack again. While I try to get it to fit he calls the cab. 

“That was actually fun, I enjoyed it but maybe on a warmer day next time.” He says as the cab pulls up. I nod and open the door for him to climb in before I slide in beside him. 

~~~~~

We get in the door and I toss my bag on the table by the door while ‘Trick hangs up his hat. He’s still shivering a bit so I hug him from behind. He squeaks in surprise when I grab a hold of him but leans into it anyway. 

“How are you so goddamn warm?” He says, his voice going almost velvety as he relaxes in my arms. I pick him up and carry him to the couch. I sit down and pull him into my lap, he doesn’t protest at all. 

“Don’t know, just am I guess.” I say, not letting go of him for a second. I kiss his cheek and he hums happily. “Kind of always have been.” I rock side to side gently, not much but just noticeably. 

He sighs after a few minutes and starts to wiggle. I loosen my grip trying to figure out what he’s doing but that seems to be exactly what he wanted. He turns himself around to straddle my legs and face me, bashing our knees together in the process. He settles down again as I wince and rub my now sore knee. 

“What are you doing?” I try to ask but he cuts me off by kissing me hard. I kiss him back as he laces his fingers together behind my neck. His lips move against mine, soft and warm. I lean forward just enough for him to break the kiss so I can breathe for a second. He realizes and gives me a minute, resting his face against my shoulder. I nudge at his neck and he lifts his head so I can kiss him. 

It feels like fire racing through my veins. He tugs at my shirt, trying to get it over my head. I help him out with it and he smiles at me, his pretty blue-green eyes lit up and sparkling. He kisses me again and I feel his hand against my jaw, holding me there, parting my lips with his tongue. I rest my hands on his hips as he starts to rock them, searching for some kind of friction. I pull back and break the kiss again, earning a whine from him. 

“C’mon babe, bedroom.” I say, my voice rough and quiet. He nods and stands up, taking my hand and pulling me behind him down the hall to our bedroom. He lays down and pulls me on top of him, reaching up to pull at my neck and kissing me with a stronger feeling of need behind it. I smile into the kiss and slip my hand under his shirt, brushing my fingers over his hips and grinding my hips upwards. He moans and pushes back. 

He slips his hand between us and pulls at my belt, not trying to undo it because he can’t at this angle but telling me he wants it gone. I ignore it though and pull his shirt up and over his head. I break away from his lips in the process and earn what sounds like a growl when I don’t come back. The growl is silenced when I kiss his neck though, leaving a burning trail of bites and kisses down to his pelvis. He lays there and lets me kiss his body.

I work his jeans off of him and his boxers follow suit. He’s already so hard. I take him in my mouth and tease him with my tongue. “Fuck.” I hear fall off his lips, it sounds wrong but so right at the same time. I like it. I continue to tease him and he squirms. “Pete stop it, please just…” he can’t seem to finish the sentence but uses his feet to push at my jeans to get the message across. I get off the bed and leave him laying there while I step out of my jeans and boxers. I crawl back over him and he smiles, kissing me and pulling at my hips. 

“Jesus, ‘Trick, you’re so beautiful like this.” I laugh as he whines at me when I pull away. He reaches down to run his hand over my dick, stroking gently but quickly. I groan and lean into it, my vision blurring a little at the sensation. I grab his wrist and pull his hand away though, grinding my hips against his. He whines again and reaches over to his bedside table. Before I can figure out what he’s up to he presses a bottle of lube into my hand. I look at him. “You sure?” 

He nods quickly. We hadn’t quite gotten this far yet, I’d been working up to it but apparently he’s decided he’s done waiting for me to make the first move. I kiss him again before popping the cap and lubing up a couple of fingers. He smiles sinfully and looks so much less innocent than I’d have thought possible. I press my finger against his hole, easing and watching him close his eyes and moan quietly at the feeling. I press in the second finger and when I don’t move them his eyes snap open to glare at me. I laugh at the look of pure frustration on his face and start moving my hand. I build a steady rhythm shifting with each push, searching for it. I pull out and use a little more lube to keep from hurting him before I add a third finger. I know I finally found what I was looking for when I hear a gasp from him and his jaw goes slack. He continues to moan and gasp with each hit. 

“For fuck sakes.” He cries out. “Pete..?” he whines my name and I stop. “Pete please..?” He groans. 

“What baby?” I ask, pulling my fingers out and bringing myself up to kiss his face and neck. “What’s the matter?” 

“Just…” he pants hard. “Please for the love of god just fuck me already.” He says quickly, the words almost blurring together but I catch each and everyone of them. I smile and kiss him as he tries to pull at my waist. 

I pick up the lube again and grab his hand. He holds it out as I pour a little in his palm. He runs his hand over my length as I kiss him. I pull away only enough to pick up his hips, tilting them slightly before setting the back down. He holds his legs up, keeping his knees at either side of my rib-cage as I press the tip against him. I push gently until I’m all the way in with him breathing heavily below me. I don’t move until he starts getting frustrated with me again, pulling at my hips with his legs. I pull out a bit and push back in, rolling my hips up in the process. He moans till it’s cut off with a gasp. First try. I smile and lean my elbows beside his shoulders. I start a steady pace as he grips my shoulders, his face dusted with a red glow as he moans and mumbles under me. 

“God, Pete….” He says just loud enough for me to hear, encouraging me to pick up the pace a bit. I start to feel the tension in my gut becoming unbearable. I groan as I strain against it, almost growling at the effort. He brushes his hand over my face and nods. “It’s ok…” he pants. “It’s ok, I’m close too.” He groans. I shift my weight to one arm and reach down, determined for him to get off before I do. It doesn’t take much before he spills over my hand and on his stomach, digging his nails into my back a little as he does. I keep going till I feel the tension snap as I release into him. He hums at the feeling as I ride it out. I still after a minute, finally spent and kiss him, brushing his hair away from his face. He kisses me back, sweetly and gently. 

I pull out and lay beside him. He rolls onto his side and reaches out to run his fingers through my hair, playing with the choppy strands as he smiles at me. “What are you smiling like a goof for?” I say laughing at the silly look on his face. He sticks his tongue out at me. 

“Was better than I ever could have imagined.” He whispers softly, his voice like music somehow. 

“Good.” I say, leaning forward to kiss his forehead. I try to get up to get a cloth but my muscles scream in protest. I grit my teeth and try again, ignoring the pull in my legs. I bring clean up and bring the cloth out to clean him up. He lets me and hums in contentment when I finally lay back down. He pulls the blankets out from under us and wraps it around us, cuddling into me and laying his head on my chest. I let the tired feeling pull at me as I hear his start to actually hum a tune. A soft song that sounds familiar but my sleepy brain can’t place it. I give up after listening for a minute and close my eyes letting sleep find me and carry me away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am absolutely not sorry at all, not one bit....may have been in a weird mood when I wrote this, any feels you are feeling were completely intentional on my part and I'm not sorry <3
> 
> also there is only one more chapter after this, that's right I finally finished writing it.


	20. Something to Ask of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...I'm not even gonna give you any clues, just read it.........................

*Jump Ahead Two Years*

I fuss about over the stove waiting for Lunchbox to get home from the studio. He wanted to finish up this new song before his show tomorrow and the only time they had available was today. He grumbled for hours about it, saying he’d just wait, but I told him it was fine. I pull the sauce pan off the stove and set it on the stupid pot holder thing on the counter as I hear the door click open. 

“Hey babe, how’d it go?” I holler as I hear him ditch his hat, coat, and shoes in the hall before padding out to the dining room. 

“Good, got it finished finally.” He says. 

“Stay out there you brat.” I say as I hear him getting close to the kitchen. “Dinner is almost ready I just have to plate it.” I say and hear him sigh before pulling out one of the chairs at the table. 

“I’m really sorry I had to go in on our anniversary, Pete, I hate that I didn’t get to spend the day with you today.” He grumbles and I poke my head around the corner to see him slumped on the table. 

“None of that grumbling grumpy nonsense.” I click my tongue at him. “It’s fine Lunchbox, I understand and I’m the one who told you not to worry about it. Besides it just gave me time to come up with what to make you for dinner.” I duck back into the kitchen and finish putting the food together. I tuck a bottle of wine under my arm and grab the plates. I set them on the table with the silverware and wine glasses I’d already put out. I take the wine bottle and fight with the stupid cork for a minute before it finally gives and gets the fuck out of the bottle.

Patrick sits up and looks at the food in front of him. He smiles up at me as I pour our wine. I kiss him before I sit down across from him. “Happy two years, Pete.” he says before taking a sip of his wine. He smiles down at his dinner. “Chicken Parmesan, you got fancy tonight.” 

“Well I figured you wouldn’t want pizza.” I say as I pick up my knife and fork. We eat quietly, the only chatter being about his day at the studio. I watch him carefully as he talks, asks questions here and there to keep him going. He loosens up and doesn’t seem so worried about not being here today. I take the dishes to the kitchen when we are done eating and bring out the pie I bought for dessert. I set it on the table while he pours us some more wine. 

“So what did you do all day?” He asks having told me all about his day. I shift uncomfortably in my seat.

“Well I read some more of that book I’ve been reading, and Brendon stopped by for a bit around lunch time.” I smile. “He and Jade are talking about throwing Dani a party next week. He said Dani is still protesting about him helping Jade get her that congratulations present for getting her book published, though I still don’t even know what it is.” I poke at the pie with my fork. 

“They took her to that tattoo parlour you go to to get a tattoo she had been saving up for. Brendon helped Jade pay for it.” He says, chuckling at the very idea. “Apparently it’s not the first one she’s got but it’s really pretty, a dreamcatcher or something on her forearm.” 

I nod, sounds right. “Anyway, I finished that story I’ve been working on for Jade’s trip to Nova Scotia this year. Not sure why she wanted me to do it but whatever. Lot’s of whale pictures to sort through.” I laugh, thinking about the pile of them sitting on my desk. “Then I went and picked up the stuff to make dinner and started making it.” 

“Sounds like you managed to keep busy today.” He smiles, I look down and his pie is gone already. I laugh and shake my head, I should have known. Pumpkin pie is his favourite after all.

“Yeah, for the most part I did.” I shift in my seat again. I set my fork down and clear my throat, trying to calm my heart rate in the process. 

Patrick tilts his head as he studies me. “What’s wrong?” He asks warily. 

“Hmm? Nothing is wrong, I just…” I trail off and shake my head before refocusing on him. “I have something to ask you.” 

He continues to watch me with a look of uncertainty. “Okay…” he trails off, his voice cautious. 

I stand up deciding it’s now or never and take a deep breath before shoving my hand in my pocket to pull out the small box that’s been digging into my leg the whole damn day. Patrick continues to watch me until I fall to one knee in front of him and open the tiny box to show him what’s inside. He gasps at the ring and looks between me and it.

“Patrick Martin Stump…” I choke out and clear my throat. “I love you more than anything in the world and would be eternally happy if you would do me the incredible honour of marrying me. Would you marry me?” I say as he sits there with his mouth hanging open.

“Oh my god, Pete!” He starts to tear up. “Yes, yes of course I’ll marry you!” He stands up carefully at the same time as I do. I kiss him and wrap my arms around him as he laughs and cries at the same time. I kiss his forehead before I let go of him. 

“Here, give me your hand.” I say pulling the ring out of the box and setting the box on the table. He smiles and holds out his left hand where I slip the ring onto his finger and smile up at him. 

“Where on earth did you find such a pretty ring?” He asks hugging me tight. 

“It was my grandma’s, she had it sent to be modified to fit you and look less feminine though. Her idea not mine.” I smile and hug him back. “She was surprised when I called her, but glad and is very excited about this.” 

“I can imagine, I love your grandma she’s such a sweet lady.” I hear the smile in his voice and know he’s thinking about the day he met my family. “You know we have a whole bunch of phone calls to make now right?”

I laugh and nod. “Yeah, I know, and you know who we’ve gotta call first?” He shakes his head. “Joe and Andy, they are gonna completely flip out.” He laughs and reaches into my back pocket to hand me my phone.

“Might as well get it over with then.” He smiles wide. 

I take the phone and just watch him for a minute. “You know….I love you.” I say with absolute certainty. 

“I love you too.” He kisses me and I feel like nothing could possibly make any of this better. It’s already perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well.....that's it, that's all....it's over now. I hope you are all satisfied with the way this went and the way it ended. I know I am. I wasn't sure what to expect when I started writing this, until the last two chapters I was simply writing it one chapter at a time so the outcome and events were just as much a surprise to me as they were to you to be honest. I already have the idea for the next Peterick but won't be working on it for a while. Catch you on the flip side ;)


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